Was tracking with a lot of this until the last two chapters, which have really not aged well (so much gender essentialism and heteronormativity, and a final chapter that was very Old Man Yells At Cloud).

This is an important book that provides a solid framework for family systems theory. I read it for a class on practical theology. I recommend this to anyone wanting a helpful background for working with various systems.

On the plus side, I did get a basic overview of the eight concepts of Bowen theory from the book. But it is poorly written. What's worse, the author can't help but inject her own ideology into the book in this paragraph: "With his ideas of repressed sexuality, [Freud] paved the way for the fraudulent though extremely influential work of Kinsey in changing sexual mores. Kinsey, then, not content with perpetuating false data on the profession and the public, went on to promote his particular brand of sex education in the schools--the 'education' with an agenda--to legitimize every sexual orientation and behavior no matter how bizarre and unacceptable to emotionally mature, caring parents."

This is an important book that provides a solid framework for family systems theory. I read it for a class on practical theology. I recommend this to anyone wanting a helpful background for working with various systems.

I found this book to be pretty concise and useful. WARNING: the author is Christian, and the book gets kind of goofy towards the end (BTW some progressive Christians are really getting into family systems theory, great news). Don't let that scare you away though. I'm a fairly stalwart atheist and it didn't ruin the book for me, so, unless you're Chris Hitchens (and you're not) you aught to be fine. It's still a pretty great primer for family systems theory, well worth it.