Post 8

Bowen's family systems theory, when applied to nursing management, offers an explanation of why problems experienced by individual team members affect the function of the entire work group. Bowen proposes that each member of a family plays a part in the way in which family members relate to each other and in the way in which the family's problems surface. Similarly, each member of the work environment influences the group functions and manifestations of work problems. The same patterns that exist in families may be present in work relationships. Members of a work group spend a significant portion of time together and build emotional relationship systems similar to those of a family.


Although the work group does not share all the characteristics of a family system, there are several salient features that these two systems have in common. Examples of these shared characteristics often are emotional features passed from one member of the work team to another that tend to resemble the relationship patterns in a family. Often, members within the work environment look to their colleagues as they look to their family to provide affection, support, loyalty, and emotional fulfillment. Work relationships may be emotionally intense, as are the relationships in the work member's nuclear family. Bowen's concepts 2 can be used to guide nurse management interventions and provide the nurse administrator with a useful framework on which to base management practices.