Homoparental family and its triadic interactions. An exploratory research with the Lausanne Trilogue Play

Various authors like Patterson and Chan (1995) suggest that the psychological evolution of a child who grew up in a homoparental family is not different from that of a child pertaining to other types of family structures. Literature on family dynamics in homoparental contexts (Vecho & Schneider, 2005; Gross, 2005) shows that only few studies focus on a systematic analysis of interactions. They rather deal with representational and symbolic aspects within the parents-children dyad and use various methodological modalities, the analysis unit being the single person. For this reason it is actually essential to try to understand the child’s development from a triadic point of view that takes into consideration the parental couple and the child (Fivaz-Depeursinge, 2003). The aim of our study is to observe the postnatal family interactions of homoparental families using the Lausanne Trilogue Play paradigm (LTP Fivaz-Depeursinge, 1999). We assume that there are no significant differences regarding the quality of the family triadic interactions. Family alliance appears to be comparable in homoparental and other non-referred family samples. The first results with 15 homoparental families seem to confirm our research hypothesis. These pilot results may turn out to be significant in our ongoing research