ABSTRACT
Triangular theory aids in the search for comprehension and technique by providing a dual focus when encountering couple primitive mental states, by drawing us into undisclosed primitive fantasies, or if disclosed but not modified, rendering us null and void. Triangulation of unconscious fantasy in the interpsychic world of the couple deadens desires and maintains a tolerable balance that allows marriages to go on. Containment of the couple's primitive defences and anxieties is essential to establishing a safe working alliance, but containment and its rupture reveals how we therapists get inevitably caught in the web of triangular transferences. The more regressed couples get variously diagnosed as having personality disorders, including borderline, narcissistic, and schizoid types. The situation of impasse was replaced by the couple's acceptance that Jan was willing to let them decide the future of the treatment. Triangulation within the couple system can stand out as the external pattern that defeats dyadic intimacy.
