Case Study: Failure To Launch

Trip is a thirty- five-year-old man, who has been living with his parents since the day he was brought home from the hospital. Sue (Trip’s mother) does his bed, washes Trip’s clothes, and even cleans his room. Trip’s excuse for not leaving home is that his parents will miss him too much. Unfortunately Trip is unaware that his parents hired an interventionist named Paula, who plans to make Trip “develop self esteem” while he is in a romantic relationship with her. The purpose of this plan is to make Trip move out of his parent’s house so he can become an independent adult. The developmental theories and concepts related to Failure to Launch are emotional and social development, emerging adulthood, intimacy vs. isolation, triangular theory …show more content…
In spite of Trip not knowing about Paula’s deal with his parents, they formed a companionate love. It was lovely, trustworthy, and to Paula’s surprise caregiving. Through Trip and Paula’s relationship they started to bond more, and Paula unintentionally began to fall in love with Trip. This caused them to be more intimate with one another, Trip would share stories of his childhood, and Paula loved to listen to all of them. Of course with the intimacy Trip and Paula shared they also had sexual attraction towards each other. Paula knew this was not good for her business, but she could not help loving him. Once Trip found out about Paula’s deal with his parents, the trust they shared during the companionate love was broken. As a result it took Trip and Paula awhile to talk the predicament through, and Paula had to let Trip know that what she felt was real. With all the bickering that went on between them, they were able to resolve their problem, and be together again. Once Trip and Paula were reunited they were able to trust one another and be in a committed …show more content…
Trip’s parents Sue and Al were supportive, and loving towards Trip living at home (for a certain period of time), his job as a boat sales man, and Trip’s parents would even help him break up with his previous girlfriends before Paula. They would have a strategy, Trip would bring his girlfriend up to his room, things would get heated up and his father Al would come in asking questions; killing the mood for the girlfriend. The girlfriend feeling disappointed that her ideal boyfriend was not who he said to be, would leave the house and never come back. This form of secure attachment helped Trip fall in love with Paula even after their trust issues unraveled, because a securely attached person’s “behavior toward their partner are empathic, and supportive and their conflict resolution strategies constructive… turning to their partner for comfort and assistance came with ease” (Collins et al., 2006; Creasey & Jarvis, 2009: Roisman et al.,