Episode 2: The Impenetrable Couple - Therapist As Third Wheel
From Three Associating: Adventures in Relational Psychoanalytic Supervision by Gill Straker, Rachael Burton, Andrew Geeves
March 1, 2026 · 21 min · Season 6 · Episode 2
About this episode
Andrew navigates the complexities of including a patient's partner in therapy as a benign observer, leading to insights about resistance and therapeutic dynamics.
In this episode, Andrew presents an unusual situation where a patient requires his partner to be present in his therapy not to work on couple dynamics, but as a benign observer. Andrew finds himself unable to resist this demand both because Andrew is ideologically opposed to imposing his will on the patient and because he can’t in the moment think why the patient’s preference should be resisted. Andrew consciously accepts the patient’s narrative that therapy should take place in the threesome but unconsciously resists it. This resistance manifests in an insistent thought that the therapy will be short term. In supervision, he realises that the thought is a wish covering over his frustration at being manoeuvred into working in a way that is restrictive and recognises that he is in the presence of a merger. Andrew comes to see this merger as less sweet and more problematic than he had thought and he determines to use his frustration to challenge the merger and negotiate a different therapeutic frame.
People in this episode
Host: Andrew
Topics covered
- therapy
- couple dynamics
- supervision
- merger
- frustration
- therapeutic frame
Keywords
- therapy
- couple dynamics
- supervision
- merger
- frustration
- therapeutic frame
- patient
- partner
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