| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 心理與諮商學系碩士班 === 99 === The research aimed to explore how the couple and the counselor interacted in the triangular relationship in marital counseling. The research focused on how the counselor feelings, thoughts, and his/her personal issues influenced the treatments of the marital counseling in the triangular relationship. The research adopted the method of hermeneutic phenomenology to interpret the interviewee’s experiences. The interview was based on Depth Analysis, and the interview was designed by semi-structured analysis to collect data and followed by thematic analysis to deal with the script and text. The research interviewed three subjects who were marital counselors for one to two times individually. In the interview, the interviewees were asked to pick up one case recent days or the most impressive one he/she has ever met. The interviewees would try to recall what happened between the three people in the session.
There were five main discoveries in the research, as the following five points explained:
1. The phenomena observation─ There are three elements in the formation of triangular relationship:
(1) First, the clients, either one of the couple, expected the counselor to stand in his/her place to speak for him/her, maintaining the fair relationship.
(2) The counselor identified himself/herself with the client and the client’s preference.
(3) The strategies of counselor’s therapeutic treatments.
2. How the three roles experienced the triangular relationship:
The discoveries of their experiences could be described in the two aspects: thoughts and feelings.
(1)There were three discoveries about the counselor’s feelings in the triangular therapeutic relationship:
a. The feelings of being interrupted in the link between the client and the counselor.
b. The feelings of being linked to the client.
c. The feeling of being neutral.
(2) There were six aspects of the counselor’s thoughts.
a. To stand in the neutral place.
b. To focus on the treatment with the couple.
c. To transfer the sentiments into sensibility.
d. The influences of the personalities and the attitudes of the clients.
e. The awareness of the differences of the therapeutic relationship between a single treatment and a couple therapy.
f. The clarification of the counselor’s principles and position.
3. The treatments of the triangular relationship:
There were three aspects in the discoveries about treatments:
(1) The structure of the counseling.
(2) Whether the counselor met the client’s expectations or not.
(3) Other treatments.
Among the three above the second one can be divided into two categories; one was to satisfy the client’s expectations and the other was not to satisfy his/her expectations. All these categories could lead to 14 types of treatments.
4. The intentions of the treatment of the triangular therapeutic relationship, which can be divided into seven categories.
(1) To stand in the neutral position to avoid one part being preferred.
(2) Alliance was one type of therapeutic strategies, in which the therapeutic relationship could be balanced by cutting down the distance between the two people.
(3) Empathy was the key to building a good relationship to deal with the client’s defense.
(4) To focus on the relationship of the couple and to help the two people understand each other’s inner feelings and thoughts.
(5) Identifying the client would result in the alliance of the relationship, which broke the balance of the triangular relationship.
(6) The arrangement of different counseling structures: the single therapy and the couple therapy simultaneously.
(7) The disposition of the counselor’s emotions.
5. The influences of the client’s personal experience on the triangular relationship, which can be divided into four categories:
(1) The family background and growing experience of the counselor.
(2) The adoption of different theories.
(3) The values of individuals.
(4) The view points of neutral positions.
Finally, based on the findings and conclusions of the research, the researcher gave some suggestion for counselors working on marital counseling and future research.
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