<p>In this episode, <a href="https://andrewgeeves.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Andrew</a> 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. </p><p><a href="https://andrewgeeves.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Andrew</a> finds himself unable to resist this demand both because <a href="https://andrewgeeves.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Andrew</a> 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. </p><p><a href="https://andrewgeeves.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Andrew</a> 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. </p><p>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.  </p><p><a href="https://andrewgeeves.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Andrew</a> 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. </p>