The Open Tribe — Closed Tribe Hypothesis of Differentiation

A New Family Systems Hypothesis About Adult Child Cutoffs

By Dr. Jean Metivier, PhD

Human beings are inherently tribal.

The question is not whether we belong to tribes, but what kind of tribes we create.

From birth, we are embedded in systems of relationship. We belong to families, neighborhoods, schools, religious communities, workplaces, friend groups, and cultures. Throughout life, we move among these tribes, ideally expanding our world while remaining connected to the people who helped shape us.

Most theories of family relationships focus on attachment, boundaries, trauma, or differentiation. These perspectives have profoundly influenced our understanding of human development. Yet I have begun to wonder whether another dimension deserves attention.

What if the most important question is not simply whether a family is enmeshed or differentiated?

What if we also need to ask whether a relationship system functions as an open tribe or a closed tribe?

This article presents a conceptual hypothesis intended to stimulate discussion and future research. It is not offered as an established theory, nor is it intended to explain every adult child cutoff. Rather, it proposes one possible developmental pathway for a subset of estrangements, particularly those arising in loving but emotionally enmeshed families where severe abuse was not the primary cause.

Open tribes and closed tribes

Human beings need belonging. Healthy psychological development is not about becoming independent of all tribes. It is about developing the capacity to belong without losing oneself.

An open tribe welcomes growth. It embraces spouses, in-laws, grandchildren, friends, and new ideas. Members remain emotionally connected while retaining the freedom to develop independent identities and maintain multiple meaningful relationships. Emotional closeness may be intense — even enmeshed at times — but the system remains permeable and capable of adaptation.

A closed tribe also offers belonging, but it gradually organizes itself around exclusive loyalty. Competing attachments become psychologically threatening. Outside influences are viewed with suspicion. Relationships beyond the tribe are tolerated only when they reinforce the existing system. Over time, the tribe contracts rather than expands.

My hypothesis is that openness and enmeshment are separate dimensions. Emotional fusion is not the opposite of openness. A family can be emotionally close while remaining welcoming, flexible, and capable of growth. Conversely, a family can be emotionally fused and psychologically closed, making differentiation far more difficult.

Differentiation is not leaving the tribe

Murray Bowen described differentiation as the capacity to maintain one’s sense of self while remaining emotionally connected to important relationships. In healthy development, individuals do not abandon connection; they become capable of thinking independently without severing emotional bonds.

My hypothesis extends this concept.

Differentiation is not learning to live without tribes.

Differentiation is learning to belong to many tribes without losing yourself in any one of them.

A differentiated adult can love parents without betraying a spouse, maintain lifelong friendships while forming new ones, and participate in multiple communities without experiencing those loyalties as mutually exclusive.

Their relational world expands rather than contracts.

An interrupted attempt at differentiation

This hypothesis grew from a question that has troubled me for years.

Why do some adult children from loving, though emotionally enmeshed, families abruptly cut off not only parents, but also siblings, cousins, childhood friends, mentors, and entire communities?

Perhaps the cutoff is not the end of one relationship.

Perhaps it is the beginning of another.

I propose that some adult children genuinely attempt to differentiate from their family of origin. However, because they never learned how to differentiate while remaining emotionally connected, they mistake separation for differentiation.

Instead of developing a stable and autonomous sense of self, they leave one emotionally fused relationship system and become deeply identified with another.

The difference is that the new tribe is psychologically closed.

Within that closed tribe, maintaining close relationships with the family of origin may feel like divided loyalty rather than healthy connection. The cutoff is therefore not evidence that differentiation has been completed. It represents an attempt at differentiation that has become developmentally interrupted.

Why apologies may not be enough

This hypothesis also offers one possible explanation for why repeated apologies sometimes fail to restore relationships.

Parents may spend years reflecting on their mistakes, attending therapy, respecting boundaries, and offering sincere apologies.

Yet reconciliation never occurs.

This does not necessarily mean the apologies were insincere, nor does it mean parents were perfect. Parents often make mistakes, and genuine accountability matters.

However, if the central developmental task is differentiation rather than simply resolving an interpersonal injury, then no apology alone can complete that work.

The apology addresses the relationship.

Differentiation transforms the person.

Until the adult child develops the psychological freedom to maintain multiple primary attachments without experiencing them as competing loyalties, reconciliation may remain difficult regardless of how many apologies are offered.

How closed tribes change

Closed tribes are rarely sustained because their members are malicious.

More often, they are organized around fear, protection, trauma, or the understandable desire to preserve belonging. The system maintains stability by discouraging competing attachments and rewarding loyalty.

Meaningful differentiation may occur only when that system becomes more permeable. This can happen through therapy, significant life transitions, post-traumatic growth, the loss of a dominant organizing figure, or experiences that allow the individual to think independently while remaining emotionally connected.

The critical change is not simply leaving the tribe.

It is becoming free enough to evaluate every tribe independently.

A hypothesis for discussion

This hypothesis is offered as a conceptual extension of family systems thinking rather than as an established psychological theory.

The concepts of open tribes and closed tribes are my own proposed theoretical constructs. They are intended to stimulate discussion, clinical observation, and future empirical research.

If this hypothesis proves useful, it suggests that some adult child cutoffs may be understood not simply by asking:

“What happened in the family of origin?”

but also by asking:

“What kind of tribe did the adult child enter?”

Perhaps the goal of adulthood is not to leave our tribes behind.

Perhaps it is to become sufficiently differentiated to belong to many tribes — without ever losing ourselves in any one of them.

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References

Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. Jason Aronson.

Kerr, M. E., & Bowen, M. (1988). Family evaluation. W. W. Norton.

Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and family therapy. Harvard University Press.

Minuchin, S., & Fishman, H. C. (1981). Family therapy techniques. Harvard University Press.

Nichols, M. P., & Davis, S. D. (2020). Family therapy: Concepts and methods (12th ed.). Pearson.

Papero, D. V. (1990). Bowen family systems theory. Allyn & Bacon.