The Necessity of TRIADS in Times of Crisis
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While we have briefly mentioned various reasons for forming/joining a
TRIAD, let us now look a bit more deeply into the advantages that they
offer. In a later chapter we will look at how those advantages arise
but, for the moment, it is enough to identify what they are and
therefore the reasons for using TRIADs. All of us have life struggles
and that is good because that is the means of developing our character
and soul, but we need tools for meeting those challenges and struggles.
In our earliest years we have parents and teachers to guide us. This
is also good and there are certain standards they are expected to meet,
which of course all fulfill to a greater or lesser degree.
Parents are expected to teach certain basic principles such as honesty
and industry and social adaptation in the way of courtesy, and teachers
should provide all that plus additional life skills such as literacy and
basic knowledge of the world around us. There are many organizations
of which we can avail ourselves, such as Scouting and youth
organizations, religious groups, service organizations and clubs of
various kinds that will help us develop social capabilities. Some of
these we can rely upon as long term support groups in that particular
activity. Beyond that, many people have a greater or lesser circle of friends, generally accepting of them but with no specific goal regarding encouraging personal development. Some few people are fortunate enough to find a mentor, guru, cleric or other individual who undertakes to give them specific guidance. And some people go so far as to hire counselors or personal coaches for specific tasks from psychological adaptation to job seeking. In times of crisis some people will seek out guidance from friends, crisis help lines/centers, clerics, parents or grandparents. While we all acknowledge the importance of these connections, still most often they are ignored or are inadequate in meeting our needs. In other cultures there may be tribal councils and other support groups but in North America, at least, the individual often finds themselves isolated with their problems. The old North American 'professional' model, One problem - One Counselor, is inadequate; your next appointment is a week from Tuesday, not necessarily as the crisis evolves. Crises can have different intensities varying from making day to day decisions about job interviews to flare-ups in marriage conflicts, to dealing with addictions, medical traumas or spontaneous events in any number of life situations that seemingly have a momentum of their own rather than following the rhythm and flow of a scheduled activity. A closely associated TRIAD can provide the assistance when needed. It is naturally composed of a responder and a back-up responder and, more importantly, it has built-in monitoring of the responder response. Let us consider some examples without getting into a lot of detail.
It is very possible to be quite alone in a crowd. Recently the vice-president of the United States noted that over half the US military casualties were at that time due to suicide. When we think of the rows of flag draped caskets being unloaded from a cargo plane and of the actual cause of half of those deaths, it should give us pause to think -- particularly to think about what I will call the ‘walking wounded’, those who are socially, spiritually, and psychologically traumatized but who are returned to our civilian streets without a source for sufficient emotional support. Those problems just described are not limited to just military and ex-military personnel, but include many other groups -- those being returned to the streets from prisons and mental institutions, to name but two. This kind of isolation then creates further problems. There are many facets of our society that we consider to be normal but that actually have large components of isolated individuals: many students are loners; others by the very nature of their jobs. I have lived in a rural community for a long time and I refer to the numerous suicides as the 'farmer's disease'. Life becomes very oppressive in many circumstances and the individuals involved become very isolated and depressed. Properly functioning TRIADs would be a major source of prevention of suicide in such circumstances. It is my belief that, given the statistics, military commanders would be well advised to make sure that all under their command attend a lecture by the Chaplain or a psychologist explaining the nature of TRIADs and how they function. All members of a unit would then be required to form TRIADs that would be registered and tracked. The actual TRIAD members would still voluntarily select the members of their TRIAD. In the next chapter we will discuss methods for assisting this to occur. If an individual got into trouble it would not be just that individual that was called upon the carpet but also the other members of their TRIAD, who would be questioned about what kind of counseling they were giving the individual that did not prevent the problem from developing. Other TRIADs would become aware of their TRIADic responsibilities. It is loners that get into difficulty, that lead to problems for both themselves and the unit. The old buddy systems are not sufficient. It is easy for two individuals to get into a similar pattern and to commiserate with each other. They will generally not stay buddies if one is critical of the other, but in a TRIAD system, as will be explained in more detail later, there should be an objective evaluation of the relationship between the two. Many of the older systems of support -- such as mentoring, university major advisors, auditors and supervisors -- had the deficiency of not only being a single point of reference that was not monitored by an objective viewer, but that they were in fact an authoritative relationship that often did not permit or encourage independence in individual growth. Oftentimes the mentee felt there was a marked lack of empathy. Mentors, counselors and advisors are still good, and can be used independently from the TRIAD system, or in conjunction with it. Their role can be an adjunct to the TRIAD system but they should not have an authoritative commanding role within the TRIAD itself. This is something which will be discussed in more detail in a later chapter. We have considered, or will consider, TRIADs for specific circumstances, some that may be as temporary as for the length of a conference, others that are oriented to ones employment or education, and still others focused on particular life circumstances such as divorce or illness support, or other family or life circumstances that are subject to crisis and trauma. However, one of the major applications of TRIADs is simply for personal or spiritual growth. In the second section of the book particular attention is given to that aspect of TRIADs. In outlining this book, I pondered whether to explain the principles and philosophy of how TRIADs work and then to give some examples of what could be done with them, or inversely, as I have done so far, to first discuss more concretely the mechanics and applications for TRIADs. Some reviewers have found such detail to be overbearing, and it may well be that you will wish to skip over the next few chapters in this section, in which I further discuss the mechanics and details regarding the forming and functioning of TRIADs. You can pass on to the Second Section of the book which deals with subjects such as science, religion and psychology in regards to TRIADs and then later come back to the remaining chapters in this section when you are looking for details in how to implement TRIADs.
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