On the Triangle of Conflict and the Triangle of Person

Sometimes you react more intensely than you can explain.

Your partner makes a passing remark — and irritation flares.
Your manager asks a simple question — and you shut down.
A friend says you seem distant — and you turn cool or sarcastic.

You sense it immediately: this is bigger than the moment itself.

So what is actually happening?

In Emoties doorvoelen, Gerrie Bloothoofd and Rogier Poels describe two powerful conceptual models that illuminate precisely this process: the triangle of conflict and the triangle of persons. Together, they clarify why emotions escalate so quickly — and how we can learn to experience them rather than avoid them.

The Triangle of Conflict: What Happens Within

Imagine something small occurs. Someone disappoints you.

For a brief instant, there is a pure, unfiltered feeling.
Anger.
Sadness.
Longing.

But before you can truly allow it, something shifts.

Your body tightens.
Your breathing changes.
Your thoughts accelerate.

This is anxiety.

Almost automatically, the next move follows: you do something to avoid the discomfort.

You minimize.
You joke.
You analyze.
You say, “It’s not a big deal.”

This is defense.

The triangle of conflict describes three interconnected elements:

Feeling — the authentic emotion
Anxiety — the tension that arises when the feeling surfaces
Defense — the strategy used to avoid experiencing the feeling

Defenses once served a purpose. Perhaps anger was unsafe in your childhood home. Perhaps vulnerability led to rejection. What protected you then may now operate as an automatic pattern.

But what once ensured safety now costs energy. It narrows experience. It limits connection.

In therapy, this process is slowed down.
Defenses are gently named.
Anxiety is regulated.
The underlying feeling is given space.

When someone, perhaps for the first time, allows anger, grief, or love to be fully felt without retreating — the experience can be profoundly transformative.

The Triangle of Persons: Where It Repeats

Emotions do not exist in isolation. They are relational.

Patterns learned in early, significant relationships tend to reappear — often outside conscious awareness — in later ones.

The triangle of persons distinguishes three relational fields:

Past — significant figures such as parents or caregivers
Present — current relationships: partners, colleagues, friends
Therapist — the therapeutic relationship itself

Suppose, as a child, you felt anger toward a critical parent, but expressing it was unsafe.

Later, similar patterns may unfold:

You swallow criticism at work.
You withdraw in your partnership.
You feel irritation toward your therapist — yet you do not voice it.

The therapeutic relationship becomes a new arena for exploration.
What once felt dangerous can emerge again — this time within a safer context.

Not to be dissected.
But to be experienced.

Where the Triangles Intersect

The triangle of persons shows where the pattern plays out.
The triangle of conflict reveals what happens internally.

For example:

You feel irritation toward the therapist (present relationship).
Anxiety arises.
You shift into rationalizing.

By examining this sequence together, what once had to remain hidden becomes visible.

And in that visibility, movement begins.

Why This Matters

Rather than merely talking about the past, therapy works through lived experience in the present moment.

Not as narrative.
But as embodied reality.

A feeling that is fully experienced — without defense — loses its compulsive grip.

Reaction gives way to choice.
Automation gives way to agency.

And that is the heart of therapeutic work:
reclaiming authorship of your inner world, instead of being unconsciously steered by it.

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