Triangles and Family Therapy: Strategies and Solutions
by Monica McGoldrick
In this new video, expert family therapist and genogram innovator Monica McGoldrick illustrates the concept of triangles and how “detriangling” can lead to powerful healing within families.
Learn from master family therapist Monica McGoldrick as she reviews the powerful concept of triangles in relationships, offers step-by-step “detriangling” strategies, and bring these dynamics to life in a fascinating case study. Using genograms, the visual family mapping tool made popular by McGoldrick herself, you will see how an understanding of triangles can help you to enact deep resolution of family conflict.

When 30-year-old Eliza enters therapy to rectify her parents’ disapproval of her new boyfriend, a focus on triangle mapping prompts a sea change in her entire family’s fraught patterns. You’ll be surprised at how even within individual treatment, a visual layout of these rifts contextualizes Eliza’s problems and crystallizes her actions toward creating a new story for the whole clan. Succinct and to the point, this is one resource you’ll be glad to have on hand.

What therapists are saying…

"McGoldrick's Triangle video is a superb teaching tool! The video can be shown in its entirety, first teaching the concepts and then illustrating the ideas through a marvelous example of coaching. It can also be used in two parts-demonstrating triangles for a beginning course in family systems, followed by the case example of multi-generational work in a Family Therapy course. McGoldrick's brilliance shines throughout the video!"

-- Evan Imber-Black, PhD, author and Professor and Program Director, MFT Masters' Program, School of Social and Behavioral Science, Mercy College
In Depth
Specs
Bios
Alliances, rifts, estrangement—if you’re part of a family, chances are you’re all too familiar with these complicated relationships. As therapists, our clients’ concerns can almost always be traced back to the family. How are these dynamics created? What sustains them, even as generations shift and members come and go? Perhaps most important, how do we begin to change them into something more loving and supportive? Family therapists have worked for decades to answer these questions—and this rich new streaming video, hosted by one of the field’s premier experts, offers a critical take on one of family life’s most common aspects.

In this video, Monica McGoldrick applies her extensive knowledge of systems therapy to explain family triangles, and offers straightforward techniques you can use to help clients heal them. Family genograms, the visual tool innovated on by McGoldrick herself, reveal here how 30-year-old Eliza, the middle of three siblings, leverages emerging insights about her own family triangles in order to ease her new boyfriend’s entrance into the group. As she does this, you’ll see how her entire family reorients from top to bottom, making space for improved relationships and fresh possibilities.

You’ll be enamored as McGoldrick reveals the empowering potential of triangle mapping for clients, and the positive impact this can make intergenerationally. This is a resource you’ll be glad you added to your virtual shelf.

By watching this video, you will:
  • Understand the definition of triangles, its distinction from triads, and its impact on family dynamics.
  • Discover several potent strategies for “detriangling” these dynamics.
  • Learn how to support client goals using triangle mapping interventions.

Length of video: 00:39:22

English subtitles available

Group ISBN-10 #: 1-60124-535-1

Group ISBN-13 #: 978-1-60124-535-9

Monica McGoldrick, M.A., LCSW, Ph.D. (Honorary), the Director of the Multicultural Family Institute in Highland Park, New Jersey, is also Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She received an Honorary Doctorate from Smith for her many contributions to the field. Among many other awards, she has received the American Family Therapy Academy Award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory and Practice. She has written and spoken widely on a variety of topics including culture, class, gender, the family life cycle, loss, genograms, remarried families, and siblings. Three of her books have become best-selling classics of their publishers: The Changing Family Life Cycle, 3rd edition; Ethnicity and Family Therapy, 3rd edition; and Genograms: Assessment and Intervention, 3rd edition. See her website for more information on Monica McGoldrick and The Multicultural Family Institute.

See all Monica McGoldrick videos.


You May Also Like…