Tag Archive - triangles

Managing Anxiety in the Family System: How Couples Can Do a Better Job of Owning Their Own Anxiety

June 7, 2011 in Marriage-Family with 2 Comments

I would estimate that in about 70%-80% of the situations in which kids are brought into my office for counseling, the presenting problems have less to do with the individual child, and more to do with what is happening in the larger family system, and more particularly in the couple’s marriage (or former marriage). The children have often become the scapegoats or the symptom-bearers for the marital problems.

One of the newer relationships that I have become engaged in is a relationship with the Fuller Youth Institute. I love the work that they do in providing training, research and resources for youth workers, youth and families. In June I wrote an article for their E-Journal called Managing Anxiety in the Family: Strategies for Changing Our Relationship Dance.

Anxiety is a huge issue in the lives of many people, and it is often manifested in the lives of the youth I work with. In this article I wanted to help families understand how anxiety works within the family system, and how when couples avoid relational conflict they often end up placing their anxiety onto the lives of their kids. I hope that you will find some of my recommended strategies helpful, and that you become not only more aware of this issue, but that it will also help you avoid casting your anxiety onto others in the process.

Facebook Isn’t the Problem…But Maybe Your Marriage Is

November 18, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 10 Comments

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[image (47/365) :: Saga]

Triangling Facebook Into the Marital Unit
Often I find myself working with a kid in therapy whose parents have brought him/her in because of the problems they are creating in the family. In therapy/counseling terms that kid has become the identified patient. In short, the identified patient is:

The family member in whom the family’s symptom has emerged or is most obvious.

But often it doesn’t take long to realize that the problem really isn’t the kid, but rather the kid is just “acting out” because of what is going on in the family–the kid is carrying/becomes the carrier of the family problem. The scapegoat. This isn’t usually intentional, and is often done at an unconscious level in order to place blame on one member of the family in order to relieve anxiety in the other members–such as the marital unit. This is often why triangles are formed–in order to relieve the anxiety between two people.

BUT, I don’t think Facebook is really the problem. Rather, it’s just an easy scapegoat. Can it contribute to the problem? Yes. Can it be a catalyst in unhealthy marriage relationships? Certainly. But to blame Facebook would be to remove ourselves from the relational responsibility we have. And what about all the great things Facebook can accomplish–ways that it can enhance marriage relationships (I will talk about that later this week).

Non-Technological Neutrality, Marriage Relationships and Facebook
I’m definitely not a technological expert, but I have been learning a lot from John Dyer and others in this area. One of the things I have learned the most about is the non-neutral nature of technology which John speaks about quite a bit and in which I write about more recently in the post, Is Your Addiction to Technology Transforming Your Life. For example, I write:

At the ECHO conference John had a seminar titled Using Technology without Technology Using You. John’s main premise was that technology is not neutral. It can be both good and bad. But ultimately the use of technology is not neutral in that it transforms the user in some way. John gave the example of working with a shovel (a primitive technological tool). The shovel can be put to good use (church planting, building a home, etc.) and it can be put to bad use (killing someone, burying the body, etc.). But in either case it transforms the user in the form of blisters/calluses on the hand. The same is true of technology, whether you use it for good or bad, it still transforms you in some way when you use it.

So the question we all need to ask ourselves is, how is the technology and the tools we are using transforms us? And how does our use of technology transform those we relate to?

This is how I have come to understand the role of technology in my life.

Facebook is not the problem, but if we think that our use of Facebook isn’t transforming our marriage relationships in some way–then I think we are mistaken. Continue Reading…