How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 122

2)

De – Triangulation

Triangulation – A situation in which two family members involve a third family member in a conflictual
scenario. Bowen considers de-triangulation of self from the family emotional system.
Triangulation and Nuclear Family Emotional System. Bowen (1976) notes that anxiety can easily develop
within intimate relationships.
Under stressful situations, two people may recruit a third person into the relationship to reduce the anxiety
and gain stability. This is called triangulation.

When tension arises between two people and a third is engaged to relieve the tension it is called
triangulation . When tension is greater than what the three person system can handle, a series of
interlocking triangles is created. For example, three people create one triangle, four people
create four interlocking triangles and five people create nine interlocking triangles etc. Each
triangle has two positive sides and one negative side.
Bowen (1978) identifies two variables important in determining why triangles occur in
relationships. The first is the level of differentiation . This refers to the degree to which
individuality is maintained in a system. The second variable is the level of anxiety . This refers
to the amount of emotional tension in a system. A low level of differentiation, or a higher level
of anxiety produce more triangling.
Anticipating and diffusing triangulating maneuvers forces the parties to focus on the problem.
Other successful strategies in remaining de-triangled are seriousness and humor.

Although triangulation may lessen the emotional tension between the two people, the underlying conflict is
not addressed, and in the long run the situation worsens: What started as a conflict in the couple evolves into
a conflict within the nuclear family emotional system.
Family Projection Process and Multigenerational Transmission. The most common form of triangulation
occurs when two parents with poor differentiation fuse, leading to conflict, anxiety and ultimately the
involvement of a child in an attempt to regain stability. When a parent lacks differentiation and confidence
in her or his role with the child, the child also becomes fused and emotionally reactive.
The child is now declared to “have a problem,” and the other parent is often in the position of calming and
supporting the distraught parent. Such a triangle produces a kind of pseudo stability for a while: the
emotional instability in the couple seems to be diminished, but it has only been projected onto the child.
This family projection process makes the level of differentiation worse with each subsequent generation
(Papero, 2000). When a child leaves the family of origin with unresolved emotional attachments, whether
they are expressed in emotional fusion or emotional cutoff, they will tend to couple and create a family in
which these unresolved issues can be re-enacted. The family projection process has now become the
foundation for multigenerational transmission.
E.g.: when parents have unresolved and intense conflicts, they may focus on their offspring. Thus one or
more children may become problematic as a result of being triangulated into their parents’ relationship.
Instead of fighting with each other, the parents are temporarily distracted by riveting their attention on their
child(ren). Similarly, the conflict between the parents also may involve the triangulation of the child(ren) as
interpreters of one to the other.
Thomas Fogarty introduced to Bowen theory a distinction between triangles and triangulation. For him, the
former was a structure that existed in all families while the latter was an emotional process.
His focus on couples led him to believe that there was directional movement within family triangles that
almost always included a pursuer and a distancer.

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