“The study of the family provides a completely new order of theoretical models for thinking about man and his relationship to nature and the universe.”

-Murray Bowen

“Man’s family is a system that follows the laws of natural systems.”  

-Murray Bowen

“Man is an evolutionary assemblage of cells who has arrived at his present state from hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary adaptation and maladaptation and who is evolving on to other things. …In this sense, man is related directly to all living matter.”

-Murray Bowen

“I believe that the laws that govern emotional functioning are as orderly as those that govern other natural systems…” 

-Murray Bowen

“The emotional system governs the dance of life in all living things.  It is deep within the phylogenetic past and is much older than the intellectual system. This theory postulates that far more human activity is governed by man’s emotional system than he has been willing to admit.”

-Murray Bowen

“There is some evidence that the human can actually determine the function of his own emotional system through control of his own emotionality.  It goes in the direction of implying that the human can control his own evolution through the control of the emotional system.” 

-Murray Bowen