Which concept in Bowen’s Family Systems Theory refers to issues transmitted across generations, where parents pass emotional problems to a child?

• A. Undifferentiated ego mass
• B. Differentiation
• C. Generationally repeating family issues
• D. Emotional cutoff

Answer: (C)

Bowen's theory emphasizes how anxiety and relationship patterns are passed from one generation to the next through a process often described as multigenerational or generational transmission. The scenario—parents carrying emotional problems and passing them to a child, with those patterns reappearing in later generations—embodies this idea. The term that best captures this ongoing, across-generations transmission is generationally repeating family issues. Other Bowen concepts describe related but different mechanisms: an undifferentiated ego mass refers to fusion and unclear boundaries within the family; differentiation is about maintaining one’s own being and boundaries within the system; emotional cutoff involves managing anxiety through distance or severing emotional ties. They explain distinct features of family dynamics, not the specific pattern of issues cycling across generations.