Triad (family therapy)
In family therapy, a triad describes the relationship system between three people. This system has its first expression in the life of every person in the relationship constellation father-mother-child , i.e. the smallest nuclear family . But other family relationships or general relationships between three people in groups (subsystem) also describe a triad.
Triad as a descriptive model
Each family consists of one or more triads. The first triad that a person experiences is usually father-mother-child. Another significant triad is parent-child-sibling. There are four triads in a family of four and ten in a family of five. The multi-generational perspective provides further triads, e.g. For example: father-mother-mother-in-law, grandmother-mother-daughter, brother of the father-father-son etc. In triads an unknown family member (for example the unknown or missing father) or a deceased or not born family member can play a role. The variants are highly complex.
“Triad” is a way of looking at things, a model for describing dynamic processes in relationships, families and groups. In this sense, there is no such thing as a “good” or “bad” triad. On the other hand, depending on the chosen goal, a certain pattern in a triad can be more or less helpful to achieve a certain goal, for example in raising children or in developing partnerships.
The term comes from Murray Bowen (1976) and was made famous by Salvador Minuchin .
Meaning of different triads
Triads - or more precisely: the experiences in a triad - have a special and fundamental meaning for the development of values and norms as well as for the development of feelings and emotional and behavioral patterns. Triads live and develop according to their own patterns and rules. These rules depend on the one hand on the type of triad (the father-mother-child triad contains different patterns than the grandfather-father-son triad), and on the other hand on family and situation-specific circumstances. Between father and mother, the family culture in the family of origin of the father and mother also plays an important role. It is also important how well it succeeds in uniting the two cultures.
Triads are always dynamic, the patterns, rules and roles change and develop. In a triad, two of the participants are always more closely connected (“ pair ”, extreme: symbiosis ), the third a little further away (extreme: “fifth wheel on the car”). These positions can be constant for a long time, but they can also change at short notice and several times (extreme: “princess” or “black peter”).
Dysfunctional triad (triangulation)
In systemic therapy (family therapy), triangulation denotes dysfunctional (e) relationship (s) within a three-way constellation among (hierarchically) unequal against a third party, for example employee and manager against another. A special form is the "changing coalition", that is, an alternating association of two against the third. Another variant is the drama triangle , where the roles of perpetrator, victim and rescuer are played.
In the case of triangulation within a family, a child receives a meaningful and unhealthy function in another subsystem (parent level) to which it does not belong and which is not appropriate for it.
- Example: The mother has a conflict with the father and allies with the daughter against the father. This gives the daughter a dysfunctional role in the subsystem of the parents. The actual conflict between the parents is to a certain extent "diverted" via a third party (here the daughter). This is a variant of the rigid triad .
Rigid triad
The term "rigid triad" comes from Minuchin . The parents stabilize their relationship at the expense of the child. A distinction is made between two forms:
- Parents stand together against a "bad" or "sick" child
- Fighting or caring for a child together distracts from one's own difficulties in the couple relationship. Or, viewed the other way around: the child “sacrifices” itself for the parent's relationship. For this purpose, mental or social behavioral problems can be used as well as physical illness, deformities, learning difficulties, eating disorders, etc.
- One parent allies with the child against the other parent
- Also: "Perverse Triangle" ( Jay Haley , 1967). Two members of different generations ally against a third party - often mother and child against the father, sometimes a chauvinistic father with the son against the mother or the stepfather and a child against the biological father.
A dissolution of a triangulation is opposed if the parent (s) "need" (" abuse " ) the child in order to remain stable as a couple / family and insofar (unconsciously) hold on to the unfavorable triangulation constellation, which brings a child into a strong loyalty conflict because he loves both father and mother and is now expected to "choose" for one and against the other. The child acts out of a good conscience towards the mother, for example, but experiences a guilty conscience towards his father and feels guilty in this context.
If, for example, the mother is mistreated by the father, from a family dynamic perspective it would be just as possible for a son to get involved in the parents' conflict by performing an unsolicited "contract murder" for the mother as a "love service" for the mother. In the worst case, such a conflict can end symbolically or in real terms, as described in the tragedy " King Oedipus " by Sophocles .
Almost two-thirds of all murders in the United States committed by young males under the age of 20 are believed to be sons who kill the man who abused their mother. Is it at the man the mother to the stepfather of the son, would have to be differentiated, however - for example, whether the son, unaware his biological father representative, the mother defends and thus in a parentification device.
Father, mother, child - the primary triangle
While psychoanalysis has long assumed that the mother-child relationship ("symbiotic relationship" according to Margaret Mahler ) is primarily decisive for the development of the child's psyche , the psychoanalyst Daniel Stern rejects this concept and now recognizes the triad ( Father, mother, child) as the primary unit of child development. A research group led by Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge and Antoinette Corboz-Warnery has investigated triadic communication patterns between parents and their children during the first years of life. From the third month of life, the child has a "triangular competence."
Circular (triadic) question
Instead of asking the mother directly what she thinks about her son, the daughter is asked what she thinks the mother thinks about her brother. This reveals relationship patterns in the triad. See also: circular question
mathematics
The number of possible relationships and possible triangles increases sharply with the number of people involved. The larger the group, the more complex the relationships become. In a multigenerational family or in a project team, the relationships are difficult to understand.
| people | Relationships | Triangles |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | - | - |
| 2 | 1 | - |
| 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 4th | 6th | 4th |
| 5 | 10 | 10 |
| 6th | 15th | 20th |
| 7th | 21st | 35 |
| 8th | 28 | 56 |
In combinatorics, these relationships correspond to combinations without repetition :
- "!" Means faculty and means: 3! = 1 * 2 * 3, 4! = 1 * 2 * 3 * 4, n! = 1 * 2 * .. n
- “N” is the number of people
- “K” is the number of vertices of the assumed polygon
The formula for the polygons corresponds to the binomial coefficients , which can be most easily determined recursively using Pascal's triangle .
See also
- Oedipus complex (psychoanalysis)
- Electra complex (analytical psychology)
literature
- Salvador Minuchin: Family and Family Therapy. Theory and practice of structural family therapy. Lambertus-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1977, ISBN 3-7841-0148-8 .
- Jay Haley : Approaches to a Theory of Pathological Systems. In: Paul Watzlawick , John H. Weakland (Eds.): Interaction. Huber, Bern et al. 1980, ISBN 3-456-80448-2 , pp. 61-84.
- Ronald Britton: The missing link: parental sexuality in the Oedipus complex. In: John Steiner (Ed.): The Oedipus Complex Today. Clinical Implications. Karnac Books, London 1989, ISBN 0-946439-55-9 , pp. 83-101.
- Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge, Antoinette Corboz-Warnery: The primary triangle. Father, mother and child from a developmental-systemic point of view. Carl Auer Systems, Heidelberg 2001, ISBN 3-89670-187-8 .
- Erhard Tietel: The interpersonal and structural dimensions of the triad. In: Joseph Rieforth (ed.): Triadic understanding in social systems. Design of complex realities. Carl Auer Verlag, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-89670-369-2 , pp. 61-85.
Individual evidence
- ^ The perverse triangle. In: J. Zuk & I. Nagy (Eds.), Family therapy and disturbed families. Palo Alto 1967, CA: Science and Behavior Books.
- ^ Fritz B. Simon, Ulrich Clement, Helm Stierlin: The language of family therapy. Stuttgart 2004, p. 257.
- ↑ Katja Klotz: Children as victims of intimate partner violence . In: Documentation of the symposium in Karlsruhe on September 14, 2000.
- ↑ Ulrich Baumann (1991) and Karl König speak of “dyadic fixation” (of the child to his mother), which the father (as a task from his third position) has to relativize / expand with regard to the development of socialization skills (of his child). Ernst Abelin (1971) speaks of "early triangulation" (expansion from dyad to triad) in this regard. Cf. Karl König (1995): The fixation in the dyad. In: Lindau texts. Texts on psychotherapeutic further and advanced training ( memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), p. 39 ff.
- ^ Hermann Lang: The structural triad and the origin of early disorders. Stuttgart 2011, p. 40 f.
- ↑ Daniel Stern in the foreword to The Primary Triangle. A Developmental Systems View of Mothers, Fathers, and Infants, 1999.
- ↑ Karl Haag: When mothers love too much. Stuttgart 2006, p. 35: “In recent infant research, the concept of the symbiotic phase is criticized and described as no longer tenable. B. by Daniel Stern ... "
- ↑ System magazine: Review of The Primary Triangle. Father, mother and child from a developmental-systemic point of view. (Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge, Antoinette Corboz-Warnery) Heidelberg 2001 .
- ↑ Lisa Schwinn, Silke Borchardt: Interactional Diagnostics of the Triad. In: Early childhood 0-3 years. Advice and psychotherapy for parents with babies and toddlers. (Ed. Manfred Cierpka), Berlin and Heidelberg 2012, p. 481.
