In the late 1950s, the psychiatrist Murray Bowen moved whole families onto a hospital ward so he could watch them, and what he mapped there — the family projection process — described how a parent’s anxiety settles quietly onto one particular child and travels down three generations without a single raised voice

In 1966, psychiatrist Murray Bowen formalised the family projection process — his account of how anxiety travels across three generations through tone, attention, and silence rather than open conflict. Modern epigenetics and trauma research have started to catch up with what he saw on the wards of NIMH. The post In the late 1950s, the psychiatrist Murray Bowen moved whole families onto a hospital ward so he could watch them, and what he mapped there — the family projection process — described ho