Episode 4: When Two Become One: The Seduction of Merger

Three Associating: Adventures in Relational Psychoanalytic Supervision

In this episode, Andrew surprises himself by the degree to which his patient has led him into dissociating from his own inner subjectivity and into merging with the patient's agenda. This agenda, in turn, reflects the patient's merged state with his partner so that “two become one”.

Andrew is able to use supervision to take up a third position and to take a perspective which frees him to use his own thoughts, thereby helping the patient shape his own subjectivity independently of his partner.