Mendoza, Tricia Hyazinth

Case Studies for Dysfunctional Family

1. A child stays home for a week with a flu. Her mother, who is lonely and bored, is now happy to
have her at home. When the child has recovered, she protested and says she is still sick. Her father
says that her mother is spoiling her and that she must go to school. The argument raises the child’s
anxiety and throws up then allowed to stay home.

This case would fall under the Detouring triangle. Detouring occurs when parents, rather
than directing anger or criticism toward each other, focus the negativity on the child and the
parent-child conflict thus serves to distract from the tension in the marital subsystem. In this case,
the mother was already feeling lonely and bored even before the child got sick. These feelings
made the mother to focus on her child to make her forget about those feelings when in fact the
feeling of loneliness and boredom should be addressed between the parents alone and not
involving the child. But since they were not talking about it, they focused instead to their sick
child. But since the coalition between the parents are stressful for the child, it made her even
sicker.

2. Mrs. A believed that children should eat specific kinds and amounts of food. When her son did
not do this, she punished him. The oldest child, a compliant boy with a good appetite, responded
by eating in the way she required. The younger child, however, was temperamentally more of a
fighter had an uncertain appetite. He refused to eat. Mrs. A continued to apply the same approach
and the result was a pitched battle and eventually an eating disorder.

In this case, the mother and the oldest child agreed on something which is to eat specific
kinds and amounts of food while on the other hand, the younger child refused to do so. Since the
mother and the oldest child are on to the same decision contradicting to the younger child, this
case would fall under stable coalition.

3. A symptomatic teenage daughter appeared to a psychologist for her depressive symptoms with
self – injurious behaviors. She then disclosed her family set up, with her father sleeping on another
bedroom as her mother often stays late with her lover. Her parents are unaware that she has full
knowledge of their family situation since her elementary years.

This case would also fall under detouring. The relationship of the parents was headed
away from each one of them but instead of dealing with it, they focused on their daughter and
tried to hide it from her to protect her feelings. But the parents doesn’t know that their daughter
already knows about it and is making her have depressive symptoms.