ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the triadic setting of baby with his mother, his father and their coupledom, and the challenges this poses for the parent-infant psychotherapist. Even experienced therapists can feel overloaded by the totality of material and the dynamics of the family system. However, there are also potential challenges specifically associated with the father’s gendered physical presence. One aspect is that having father, mother and the baby in the room together, particularly very soon after birth, potentially introduces sexuality in a very direct way. The baby is a concrete representation of intercourse and introduces the couple’s real sexuality and fecundity into the consulting room. Another aspect is that the foursome of mother-father-baby and practitioner constitute a ‘libidinal group’ which is invested with the range of love and hate of the family group. The emotional intimacy of this arrangement is qualitatively different for all participants from the triangulation with the therapist in dyadic work. Moreover, within this libidinal group there is a threesome with prior psychological knowledge of each other, and who continue their intimate groupness outside of the session. Thus, the therapist must contend with being the outsider within.
