The Maps of ISCP: Triangle of Conflict and Triangle of Person

Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy  (ISDP) utilizes two maps, Triangle of Conflict and of Person, for assisting the therapeutic processing of client behavior.

ISDP favors this schematic for directing the behavioral as well as interventional material within the immediate moment and moments of the session as they are produced in the here and now.  The triangle of conflict represents the dynamic flow of the client's unconscious material.  The triangle of person is meant to pictorially represent the basic reality that the therapist-client relationship.   

There are three main components each representing an active conscious or unconscious dynamic in any given relationship.  The client draws from these relationships: e.g. the therapist "T," past persons "P," and current persons "C" to determine how they should interact with someone.  The client may respond utilizing the "triangle of conflict" when the therapist attempts to interact with the client while utilizing behavioral patterns that the client has utilized in the past.  

For example: If the therapist requests information about the client's presenting concern, let's say, "general depression," and the client talks about how they have not been able to "get to work on time" then this could be a defensive, or "D" response.  The D response is meant to block the feelings, or "F" response, associated with the actual depressive feelings.  If the client was able to answer the question about their depressive feelings then there may have been a chance for processing the emotions.  However, the D response by the client instead wards off anxiety, and is an "A" response, in the triangle.  

All of the points: D, A and F--are connected and each time that the therapist asks a question or implements an intervention there is a chance for one of the resulting points [D, A and F] to be utilized by the client.  It is not as simple as always wanting to get an F response but more so of the therapist being actively aware of each response and then associating the triangle of conflict responses back to the Triangle of People so that the client and therapist can begin to understand the historical as well as current relationships that have and continue to contribute to the client's main presenting problem, aka general depression--but it could be any mental health concern. 

By Mathew Quaschnick

---