FSI Workshop: Where the Mud Hits the Road!: Triangles, the Basic Building Blocks of Relationships

Where the Mud Hits the Road!

Triangles: The Basic Building Blocks of Relationships

Triangles are everywhere. They occur in families, couples, workplaces, clinical relationships and organisations. Bowen family systems theory describes the triangle as the basic building block of an emotional system: a predictable way relationship tension is managed and redistributed.

This workshop will bring the concept of triangles into the realities of clinical practice. It will explore how anxiety moves through families, therapists and wider systems, how clinicians can become recruited into taking sides, fixing or overfunctioning; and what differentiation of self and a thoughtful clinical stance may contribute under pressure. Through clinical examples, participants will have opportunities to think through triangles in action and consider: Where is the anxiety moving, how am I participating, and what happens when one person changes their own functioning?

About Dr Linda MacKay 

Dr Linda Mackay is a couple and family therapist, consultant supervisor and engaging speaker known for making complex theory accessible and relevant in practice. She holds a PhD in Critical Psychology (UWS) and qualifications in counselling, couple and family therapy, and university teaching. She provides training and supervision to child, youth, and adult mental health teams, and lectures in Australia and internationally. Her work is grounded in a systems view of trauma and adversity. She is an Accredited Supervisor with the Australian Association of Family Therapy (AAFT) and Clinical Practice and Bowen Family Systems Theory Editor for the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy (ANZJFT).

Linda is an Associate Faculty Member and Ambassador of the Family Systems Institute.