Finishing Unfinished Business: Applications of the Drama Triangle to Marital Therapy

Abstract

The Drama Triangle, when used in a multigenerational approach, is an efficient diagnostic tool for marital therapy. Couples generally seek to finish their “unfinished business” with their parents through a marriage arrangement. Either they seek to replicate or to reverse their Family of Origin situation. Unless these issues are resolved, individuals will enter into and fall out of marriages, repeating the process again and again, hoping that somewhere, somehow they will be discovered by that spouse who at last will finish for them their “unfinished business.” Case studies are presented.