Working with Relationship Triangles: The One-Two-Three of Psychotherapy

Abstract

PHILIP J. GUERIN, JR., THOMAS E FOGATY, LEO F FAY, AND JUDITH GILBERT KAUTTO: Working with Relationship Triangles: The One-Two-Three of Psychotherapy. The Guilford Press, New York, 1996, 238 pp., ISBN 1-57230-143-0. The stated purpose of this work is to help clinicians to think in terms of relationship triangles and to recognize them when they occur. In this, the authors succeed. However, the book also has much more ambitious aims. The authors attempt to explain the evolution of the concept of triangles in psychological theory, to describe the purpose and function of triangles in human relationships, and to provide a model for clinical intervention. In these endeavors, the authors' success is mixed. Early in the book, the authors trace the evolution of the concept of triangles. Starting with Bowen's innovative ideas, which describe how emotional tension in a dyad results in the stabilization of the dyadic relationship within the context of a triangular one, the authors articulate how the concept expanded to include a greater emphasis on the importance of affect and emotional processes. The authors maintain that cycles of closeness and distance characterize dyadic relationships, which are fueled by separation anxiety (which fosters closeness) and incorporation anxiety (which creates distance). Although the fuel that powers these triangles initially seems clear, the authors alternate between describing the motivation as an avoidance of anxiety (separation and incorporation) at some points in the book, and as the human needs for closeness and autonomy at other points. Conceptualizing the process in these two ways results in muddied theoretical waters. For example, it is unclear whether this is a model based on anxiety reduction or conflict, which would make it akin to a classical analytic model, from which the authors seem to want to distance themselves, or on deficits in human needs, which would make it more akin to models, such as self psychology and humanistic psychology. This distinction has important implications for any theory of psychology and model of treatment, and is not adequately clarified in the book. What also obscures the authors' message is an often imprecise and vague use of language. The book seems to purposely be written in an informal style. While this might give it a broader appeal, it loses a good deal in terms of clarity. Statements such as . . the system cannot deal with one or more intrafamilial triangles, (italics mine, p. 151), . . the process spills out and incorporates people from outside the system . . . , (italics mine, p. 151), and Children are young and don't have it together yet. (italics mine, p. 209) do not do justice to what has the potential to be a sophisticated theory that can have the universal applicability that the authors see in it. The authors use the theory of triangles to put symptoms into a broader context. This focus, for example, allows the clinician to better understand and work with family of origin issues that get displaced into marital relationships, child symptoms that are displacements of parent-parent or parent-teacher conflicts, and depression and anxiety in individuals that are symptoms of unresolved conflicts about closeness and distance with one's parents. It helps the clinician to see the repetitive and predictable patterns that characterize triangles. It also helps to shift the focus from the identified problem to the obstacles that exist in the patients' important relationships which prevent them from resolving the problem. The importance of thinking in triangles is applied to individual adult, child, family, and couples therapies. The authors argue that many clinicians ignore the patient's relationships and families of origin because they see all of psychic life as being internal to the patient. These therapists, whom they are criticizing, seem like straw men. They are easy targets because they are unrealistic caricatures. …