Back in the old days we used to study the individual's personality to see what made him or her tick. We could do the MMPI, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or the Rorschach, the ink blot test, to understand better the individual's personality traits. We believed that if we understood the individual's personality traits well enough we could predict how they might behave in future situations. But then about 30 years ago along came systems theory which says that how people behave may have more to do with the context of the situation they find themselves in than their individual personality traits. For example, we all have hundreds of different sides to our personality. You can be one way with your mother and one way with your father. You may be one way with your significant other, and a different way with your friend. Each person that we have a relationship with, and each situation we find ourselves in, brings out a different side to our personality.

Dr. Bowen said that the goal of our individual growth and development is what he called
"differentiation". What he meant by that was the degree to which we have become differentiated from our family of origin. In other words to what extent do you have a mind of your own, can you stand on your own two feet, are you captain of your own ship, and master of your own fate?

We are all born into a family. And from our family we receive our "psychological legacy". The psychological legacy is made up of the beliefs, opinions, values and ways of doing things, or practices, of the family. There is the Markham way of doing things, the Hood way of doing things, the Reidell way of doing things, and the DelaCosta way of doing things.

If you ask people why they believe certain things, or why they do certain things they will tell you "Well, I don't know. That's the way I was raised" or "That's the way I was brought up." So if you ask people why they are Jewish and not Catholic, or UU and not Methodist, chances are they will tell you that they were raised Jewish etc. Why do we speak English and not Chinese? Is there something genetic about it? Does it run in families?

Most of us do not question our psychological legacy until we have children of our own because now we must decide, if we are thoughtful about it, the extent to which we want to raise our children the same way I was raised, and the extent to which I want to do it different.

"Differentiation" does not mean you have to do things different. It only means that you have made a conscious decision about it, and not just go along with it unthinkingly. So there are some good beliefs, values, and practices which you believe were good for you and you want to pass them on to your children, and there may have been some bad beliefs, and values, and practices which you consciously decide you would like to do different and pass them differently on to your children.

And so you have started to have a mind of your own. You are standing on your own two feet, and not just going along with the herd, with your conditioning.

Now, if you want to change some of the beliefs, opinions, values, and practices from the family of origin, or any group of participation, the group will experience this as "rocking the boat", "going against the grain", "disturbing the status quo", and "upsetting the apple cart". The tension and the anxiety in the group will go up.

The members of the group will feel threatened and they will do one of three things or if they are good they may do any combination of these things. They will say that you are being bad, mad, or disloyal. That is, they will say that you are being bad, naughty, and that you need to be punished. So they will try to scold you, send you to your room, deny you the privileges of the group, or they will say that you are mad, meaning crazy, and will dismiss you with statements like "Ah, you're nuts" you should see a shrink and get on some medication, or they will ridicule and mock you, or three they will say that you are disloyal, a traitor, the Benedict Arnold of the group who is no longer worthy of membership and they will shun you, excommunicate you, send you into exile, or otherwise let everybody know that you are a persona non grata.

How do you handle it when the group you love and care about thinks you are not normal? Bowen's theory suggests three steps in managing the group. First, you need to take a clear stand and a clear position. Waffling around usually doesn't help. Second, when the group says that you are bad, mad, or disloyal, you need to stick to your guns. They would love nothing more than for you to relieve their tension and anxiety by "knuckling" under. And third, and here is the critical step, you need to maintain a connection. You can't let them cut you off. If there is a cut off then the emotional system is paralyzed and stagnates and the conflict and dysfunctional behavior can be transmitted to future generations. So we all know the story about Romeo and Juliet or the Hatfields and  the McCoys where conflicts in preceding generations had a way of transmitting themselves to subsequent generations. So maintaining a connection is critical to the growth and development of all concerned. The goal here is not eventual agreement although that can sometime happen, but rather respect. We can agree to disagree and still stay in relationship.

So the point here is that sometimes it is bad to be normal if by normal we mean submitting ourselves to the status quo, to the conventional wisdom. I am for continuous quality improvement, for continuing growth and development until we become the fully realized human being that we are meant to be. Bowen said that descriptively, we could put differentiation on a scale of 1 - 10 and most adults are lucky if they make it to 5. Jesus made it to 10. Buddha made it to 10, and other enlightened masters made it to 10. They became fully realized, aware, conscious human beings, and we each can do that too, but not if we are content to be normal. We all can be post conventional when we become aware of the uniqueness and the interdependence of all life. Our Unitarian Universalist heritage teaches us about the inherent worth and dignity of every person no matter how crazy, the importance of justice and compassion in our human relations, the acceptance of one another and the encouragement of each other's growth, the free and responsible search for meaning, respect for the light of conscience, the goals of peace, liberty, and justice for all, and the respect for the interdependent web of existence.

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