In extreme cases, the adolescent may suffer a drug overdose, engage in high-risk sexual behavior with multiple partners, or get arrested as a way of distracting her mother and grandmother when they are engaged in a severe conflict. This kind of adolescent behavior is known as triangulation (Bowen, 1978), because the adolescent (a third party) is inserting herself (or is inserted) into the conflict between her two caregivers. The role of the BSFT counselor is to identify the patterns of family interactions that are associated with the adolescent’s behavior problems. For example, a mother and grandmother who are arguing about rules and consequences for a problem adolescent never reach an agreement because the adolescent
disrupts their arguments with self-destructive attempts at attracting attention.