By about 1960 I was working at knowing about relatives far into the distant past. I was the developer and author of a theory and methodology to work out one’s own emotional problems through contact with family history. The theory was worked out with my own family which became the #1 family in this effort. This brought about more personal contacts with my parents and each family member. To my own family, I became a resource for knowing about family history. To the psychiatric world, I was the #1 resource for using one’s own family to work out one’s own emotional problems. Through the long years of that effort, I learned that emotional issues are never quiet. It requires a continuing effort for life. Always, always, always, the family tends to return to its original emotional state.
—Bowen, Murray. Big Brother Returns Home Again. Paper presented at Georgetown Family Center Symposium, October 9, 1982