Murray Bowen received his psychiatric training at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas beginning in 1946, and he continued on staff at Menninger's until 1954. He then moved to the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where he conducted a five-year research project that involved families with an adult schizophrenic child living on a research ward for long periods of time.

Dr. Bowen joined the Department of Psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center in 1959. He became a Clinical Professor, was Director of Family Programs, and in 1975 founded the Georgetown Family Center. Dr. Bowen was the Director of the Family Center until his death in 1990. He also maintained a private psychiatric practice at his home-office in Chevy Chase, Maryland. His concepts of “differentiation of self,” “family projection process,” “multigenerational transmission process,” among others, continue to be taught as “Bowen Systems Theory” at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family Georgetown Family Center in Washington, D.C. and at other locations. Among his many publications is Family Therapy in Clinical Practice (Jason Aronson). He was recognized as Alumnus of the Year by the Menninger Foundation in 1985 and received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1986.

Dr. Bowen served two consecutive terms as the first President of the American Family Therapy Association. AFTA gave him an award for Distinguished Achievement in Family Therapy in 1981, and, the following year, a Special Award for Contribution to the Founding of the Association as its First President.