Malan's Triangle of Person - Repeated relationship patterns
Myira Khan • 19 July 2020
Our relationship patterns are repeated with everyone we meet.
Malan's Triangle of Person
Understanding our relationship blueprint is important to know how and why we react the way we do in present-day relationships.
Our relationship blueprint, patterns, expectations and assumptions about relationships, how we experience them and how we expect others to relate to us and treat us, were created in our childhood experiences of relationships, aka our relationship with our mother or primary care-giver.
This relationship blueprint - which is filled with expectations of what a relationship is, our beliefs of how relationships are experienced and felt - is unconsciously projected and acted out in current-day and all future relationships after childhood. As the blueprint operates on an unconscious level, this influences how we 'consciously' relate to and react to other people's behaviour, actions and words towards us.
We start to interpret their behaviour, actions and words through the filter of our relationship blueprint. So their relationship towards us becomes clouded by our unconscious template, which is filled with our own past experiences of how we interpreted and made sense of those past relationships.
An example can be that if someone takes an hour to reply to your text message - based on your relationship blueprint - you will project and assign a meaning to that 1 hour 'gap'. For some people they can interpret that as being ignored or forgotten about. For others it can be interpreted as the other person being busy.
No one 'meaning' is not right or wrong. What is important to start to become aware of is the meanings and interpretations that you start to project and assign to someone's behaviour towards you. Because how you interpret and give meaning to someone's behaviour will result in how you react to their behaviour. This becomes the repeated pattern of your relationship blueprint being played out in the present, yet the blueprint itself is based upon a past relationship.
When we start to behave towards someone, based on our relationship blueprint, and we start to relate to someone in our present-day 'as if' unconsciously they were someone from our past - this projection from the past person/relationship onto the current/present relationship is known as transference.
Transference also happens in counselling, when we react & relate to our counsellor, based on our past relationship blueprint. We start to relate to our counsellor, unconsciously 'as if' they were someone from our past.
Malan's triangle of person is a model of how we can start to understand the transference onto our present-day, from our past, and from our current-day onto our counselling relationship with our counsellor.
Our July Book Group is happening on Thursday 30th July, 6pm-7.30pm. This will be an opportunity to explore and discuss Relationships, Attachments and Attachment styles and patterns. You don't need to have read our book of the month.
If you would like to register your free place to our Book Group, please email myira@myirakhancounselling.co.uk
#counselling #coaching #relationshipcoaching #therapeuticrelationship #relationships #attachments #attachmentpatterns #transference #unconscious #relationshipblueprints
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