Supervision gives you formulation, perspective, and clinical accountability, and it is irreplaceable. But there is a difference between discussing a case and being witnessed in the experience of carrying it. In supervision, you report what happened and receive another mind on the problem. What is harder to reach is the felt sense of being in the room with a couple - the roles you were drawn into, the feelings that arrived uninvited, the shifts in your posture and attention th

Balint groups sit somewhere between supervision, group dreaming, transference and countertransference exploration and something more elusive. They create a particular kind of space where the ordinary details of clinical work - a throwaway comment from a client, a moment of irritation, confusion or affection - suddenly become rich material for thinking.

The Imago Dialogue is the central clinical tool through which this understanding is put to work. It is a structured three-stage process: mirroring, validating, and empathising. On the surface, it looks straightforward. Whilst it give a clear structure - in practice, its not as simple as it appears.

A five-part series exploring what it takes to hold the complexity of couples work — drawing on Gottman, Tavistock, Kleinian and Jungian thinking, alongside Brad McLean's own integrative TA model.