Triangulated children's reality: Medical model's concealing effect versus family systems' revealing effect

Abstract

Arguably, the medical model's narrative achieved an iconic mental health status eulogized within our evidence‐based era. Despite Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' atheoretical pretensions, we attempt to shed light and critically challenge its dogmatic mental health presumptions through a family systems perspective. Specifically, our critical study of a fictitious vignette attempts to expose how the medical model's systematic de‐emphasis of familial environments directs clinicians away from the true source of triangulated children's distress, an attention shift that may result in unintentionally perpetuating children's psychological turmoil. Alternatively, we attempt to delineate how the system paradigm may holistically account for children's familial emotional environments, thereby potentially attributing their psychological distress to its true, yet concealed, familial dysfunction. In essence, we argue that the medical model seems to operate within a decontextualized restricted disease‐carrier‐child mind frame, hence potentially ascribing faux diagnoses and false medical treatments to healthy children.

Marital relationships spillover and parental differential treatment of siblings: A multilevel meta‐analysis

“…This finding is consistent with the notion of triangulation within the family system. When parents triangulate a child into marital processes, they typically do so by increasing the emotional connection to that child because they are looking for an emotional confidant (Camisasca et al, 2019;Neophytou & Rodriguez-Gonzalez, 2020). In such a case, the increase in positive interactions would occur specifically with the triangulated child, thus treating that child differently than the other sibling.…”