Episode 4: Therapy Terminable And Interminable
From Three Associating: Adventures in Relational Psychoanalytic Supervision by Gill Straker, Rachael Burton, Andrew Geeves
May 3, 2026 · 26 min · Season 6 · Episode 4
About this episode
Andrew grapples with the ethical implications of continuing therapy with a patient who has made significant progress, revealing deeper issues of dependence and power dynamics through supervision.
In this episode, Andrew struggles with the question of therapy terminable and interminable. He faces an ethical dilemma as to whether continuing therapy with a particular patient who has made considerable gains would be in some way unethical. Andrew is thoughtful about the issue of fostering dependence which is an important issue to consider. However, he finds through supervision that he has unconsciously stepped into enacting the role of the patient's authoritarian father who imposed separations on the patient as a child. Andrew comes to see he has engaged in a subtle power struggle and has unconsciously used psychoanalytic premises as an anti analytical third that blocks thought rather than facilitates it. Interestingly, Andrew ’s awareness of the enactments in therapy are discovered through a parallel process that emerges in the supervisory relational field.
People in this episode
Hosts: Gill Straker, Rachael Burton, Andrew Geeves
Guest: Andrew
Topics covered
- therapy
- ethical dilemmas
- dependence
- power dynamics
- supervision
- psychoanalysis
Keywords
- therapy
- ethical dilemma
- dependence
- power struggle
- psychoanalysis
- supervision
- relational field
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