ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses from the perspective of a couple therapist who, working on her own, recognises the need to pay attention to the difficulties and challenges presented when clients are also in individual psychotherapy. It outlines some of the ways the couple therapy can be profoundly influenced, and how partners are affected when one or both are exposed to two forms of psychotherapy and two or three or even four therapists. The chapter explores how and where the marriage, the meaningful link, is made between the work in two separate arenas, when each arena displays a different aspect of the same client(s). Setting up a container for therapy starts with the assessment. When concurrent therapies promote splitting rather than sharing, it is because a container of all the therapeutic endeavours cannot be created; an overarching 'third position' from which thinking can lead to understanding, cannot be taken.
