Polyamory, page 24
There are some additional ethical issues to consider when it comes to making decisions about seeing polyamorous clients and their entire polycules; I address those in chapter 20, “Ethical Considerations.”
WHEN MIGHT OTHERS BE INVOLVED IN THE THERAPY?
Imagine a primary/secondary V. The primary dyad is the primary decision-making body, as in any primary/secondary relationship. As such, that dyad would be the logical place to start therapy; however, some issues and challenges will of course be between the hinge person and their secondary partner. Occasionally, issues between the partners in that dyad will be the focus of the therapy.
In that case, I will only spend enough time with the primary dyad to make sure I understand their agreements, so I don’t work at cross-purposes unintentionally. That might be accomplished in just one session with the primary dyad or even just a consultation call, and then the bulk of the therapy would be with the secondary dyad. Alternatively, if the hinge person makes decisions themselves after taking into account the preferences of their partners, that is a nonhierarchical situation more like solo polyamory, and I would be perfectly comfortable seeing the hinge with whichever partner they want. In that situation, I might want my first session or consult to involve just the hinge to determine if it will be individual or relational therapy.
Occasionally, issues between metamours (that is, the partners of the hinge person) could be the focus of the therapy. If the presenting problem involves the relationship between metamours and at first glance doesn’t seem to involve the hinge person, I would still want to understand the decision-making dynamics, strengths, challenges, and agreements before undertaking the therapy between the metamours. This might be a situation where it could make sense to have all three at the first visit or in the consultation. Helping clients get clear on agreements and decision-making will allow us all to work together to strengthen their relationship(s). Also, the hinge has a lot of influence on the systemic dynamics between metamours; it is hard to imagine a situation between metamours that doesn’t in some manner involve systemic dynamics with the hinge. For more on this, see chapter 17, “Role-Related Challenges and Benefits: Primaries, Secondaries, Hinges, Etc.”
HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM THERAPY WITH MONOGAMY?
When I see a monogamous couple, my strategy for deciding who should be in therapy is much different. I often hear from potential clients who aren’t sure if they want individual or relational therapy. In the absence of violence or emotional abuse, my advice is almost always that if they think they might want couple therapy, they should start with couple therapy. This is my logic: If I see an individual, there will be a join there. Then, the other partner is likely to have difficulty joining the therapy at a later date because they’re likely to perceive uneven alliances. I’ve heard from a lot of clients that they didn’t feel safe or heard by their partner’s individual therapist when they attempted to transition into couples therapy with them. I don’t want to undermine the couple therapy in that way.
There are also some other reasons I tend to recommend relational therapy over individual therapy. I find that relational therapy moves faster and has less room for artifice or hidden agendas: I get to see what is going on right in my office, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. People regularly expose their partner’s secrets, so I get more information up front, even if it might emerge in imperfect ways. Also, when I start with a couple in the room, I save a lot of time that might otherwise be spent with me not understanding the relational dynamics. I know that when I hear an individual’s description of their partner’s behavior and beliefs, I’m only seeing it through their eyes, and their interpretation is always skewed—often negatively, if they are having relationship problems. Ultimately, I find it much easier to do one or a few couple sessions and then determine that individual therapy would be more efficient, rather than try to do it the other way around.
With polyamory, I approach it differently. As you have seen, I usually try to get the smallest relevant group in the room first, clarify some foundational things, and then branch out from there according to the challenges of the various people involved. Upon reflection, I think this is because of a fundamental difference between monogamous relationships and polyamorous ones: With monogamous relationships you can assume that, if you have both partners in the room, you’re addressing the decision-making body. You won’t fully understand the power dynamics without discussing them, but you’re probably not missing a major player and they probably aren’t uncertain about how they make decisions.
Not so with polyamorous relationships. You could have two people in the room, neither of whom have any decision-making power, or you could have a room full of people and none of them knows who makes the decisions and how. Plus, when you’re working with polyamory, you’re likely going to be discussing some aspect of how your clients make decisions, prioritize time or resources, and make and keep agreements.
Still, I can think of a situation in a monogamous relationship where decision-making issues might arise. Imagine a situation where you are seeing a couple who is monogamous, and after a time in therapy, maybe a few sessions or a few years, you have the sense that something is “off.” You begin to wonder if there is an aspect to the situation you aren’t seeing. Maybe one of the partners is having an affair and not disclosing it. Or maybe someone is on the brink of leaving and isn’t discussing it. It feels like there is an elephant in the room, and you are just spinning your wheels and waiting to find out where the missing piece is before anything useful can happen. This is a little bit like not having the entire decision-making body in the room. If someone is having an undisclosed and major affair, they may be taking another person’s preferences into account and making plans around someone who isn’t in the room and isn’t being discussed. If you’ve ever been in that situation as a therapist, you know how it feels. It can be quite challenging, because not only is there the betrayal to contend with, but it’s also very difficult to have productive therapy when major aspects of the relationship’s dynamics are hidden from view. If you’ve experienced that feeling, you have an understanding of why you want the entire decision-making body in the room and also why you don’t want anyone else, at least at first.
Examples
Here are a few imaginary but not uncommon examples of situations in which it takes a little extra thought to determine the decision-making body. Read them and answer these questions for yourself:
Who is the decision-making body?
Who do I want to see in the first session?
What questions would I ask the client to clarify the decision?
Then read on, to see my thoughts on each case.
Example 1: A potential client calls you and says, “My name is George. My wife Sue and I are in a polyamorous triad with Brad. We’re having some problems, and I want us all to come in for relationship therapy together.” You ask what kind of problems they are experiencing, and George tells you, “Sue is having some problems accepting my relationship with Brad. We got a bit of a rough start because it started with me having an affair with Brad, but she says she is open to polyamory, and I know they will hit it off if they just spend some time together.” You ask, “Does one of these relationships take precedence over the other for you?” and George tells you, “Absolutely. I’m not leaving Sue, no matter what. I just want us to work it out, and ideally, I’d like to end up having Brad move in with us.” Who is the decision-making body? Who do you want to have come to the first session?
Example 2: A potential client calls you and says, “I’m polyamorous and I have a few different relationships going—one longer-term one and two newer ones. But I’m struggling because one of my newer partners wants to be exclusive, and I just don’t know how I feel about that.” You ask, “Do you have a primary/secondary structure with any of your relationships?” The client says, “No, not really. I don’t believe in hierarchy.” You ask, “It sounds like you are trying to figure out how you feel about being exclusive with one partner; ultimately, who is going to make that decision? You? You and a partner?” and the client tells you, “I’m going to make the decision, but first I have to figure out how I feel about it.” Who is the decision-making body? Who do you want to see in the first session?
Example 3: A potential client calls you and says, “Hi, My name is Claire, and I’ve been dating a woman named Mary for a few months. Mary lives with Jo, and they are committed to one another, and I’m really struggling with always being second place. Mary and I want to have relationship therapy so we can work through this.” You ask, “So, am I understanding correctly that Mary and Jo have a primary/secondary relationship and you are Mary’s secondary partner, and you are finding that to be difficult?” Claire says, “Yes.” Who is the decision-making body? Who do you want to see in the first session?
My Thoughts on Example 1
In the first case, although George refers to himself, his wife, and his lover as a triad, they don’t make decisions as a family. In fact, it sounds as if George and Sue haven’t formed any cohesive agreements about opening their relationship. Additionally, they may not have repaired sufficiently from George’s infidelity with Brad. It sounds like George and Sue have a primary/secondary structure, meaning that they make up the decision-making body. In my opinion, inviting Brad to the therapy too soon could be a big mistake.
I might hypothesize out loud that George and Sue could benefit from sorting out a few things between the two of them, to create a more solid foundation for opening their relationship in ways that work for both of them. Because George has come to me already with an idea of what the therapy would look like and that idea includes both Sue and Brad, this might be a hard sell. If indeed he wants to preserve the relationship with Sue, she will need to have a voice in the decision-making, and George will need to hear how she feels and what she wants, even if that is hard for him. I would ask him if that agenda interests him. If so, I would invite George and Sue to come in for therapy.
Another option might be to have George come to individual therapy. But from the little I know in this scenario, there is probably some significant unfinished business between Sue and George, and relational therapy will be a much more direct way to help them recover from past infidelity, explore both partners’ opinions about whether to open the relationship and how to go about it if they decide to move in that direction, and support both partners in having a voice and building every aspect of differentiation.
Another option is to decline taking the client at all. This is not, at first glance, the simplest presentation of polyamory. There seem to be a lot of loose ends and some major gaps in the story; it would be understandable if it felt overwhelming to take it on. Moreover, although I have a lot of experience and confidence working with polyamory, if George insisted that he, Sue, and Brad needed to attend the first sessions, I would decline to take the client. I’m not interested in setting up Sue for an ambush, nor do I think that will support George’s stated goal of preserving that relationship. I would let him know that, if his goal is strengthening his relationship with Sue to the point that they open their home to include Brad, the best chance of success would be to start by getting some clarity with Sue. If he didn’t like that idea and wasn’t interested in taking my advice after I explained my thinking in terms of helping him achieve his stated goal, I think I would probably assume we wouldn’t have an easy or effective time working together, and would decline to work with them. If I thought I might be missing something important and might really want to work with George, I would suggest we start with an individual session and see how it feels.
My Thoughts on Example 2
In the second case, the decision-making body seems to be the individual client, who has a nonhierarchical relationship structure with several partners. This client sounds like they are making decisions on their own terms about their relationships. I would invite this client to come alone to therapy. Once they have some clarity about their feelings about exclusivity and their various partners, it might make sense to invite another partner to come as a guest to therapy. Oftentimes, that isn’t necessary at all. In fact, I generally prefer to avoid it, because the partner can feel ganged up on, particularly if the original client has something difficult to share. Instead, I might choose to spend some of the individual therapy sessions using two chairs to rehearse difficult conversations with partners, build skills for nonreactive communication, and get clear on how the client wants to respond in a variety of situations. For more on this, see the exercises “Preparing to Communicate,” and “Rehearsing Tough Conversations” in appendix C. If the client really wants to do that communicating in a therapy session, I might suggest they start with a new relationship therapist, who can build a more even join by getting to know them together from the start.
My Thoughts on Example 3
In the third case, although Claire wants to come into therapy with her partner Mary, it seems that the decision-making body is Mary and Jo, and the potential client, Claire, is a secondary partner. If that is the case, it might be best to see the client individually; as a secondary partner, they are a decision-making unit of their own. In individual therapy, the focus could be on increasing the aspects of differentiation for Claire, to support improved communication in Claire’s relationships. If the primary presenting problem and goals have to do with Claire managing the complexities of a secondary relationship, individual therapy would make a lot of sense. This is another case where the exercise “Preparing to Communicate” might be helpful, as well as the other handouts for chapter 8, “Conceptualizing the Case: If Polyamory Isn’t the Problem, What Is?” Mary could be invited as a guest to Claire’s individual therapy in the future, if needed.
There are some other ways this could play out, and they are more complicated. I can imagine a situation where I might see Claire and Mary together from the start, but my ideal scenario for that would begin with a phone call from all three, Mary, Jo, and Claire, or at least two, Mary and Jo. If Mary and Jo, the primary dyad, were in agreement that all of the relationships would benefit from Claire and Mary working together better, I could get on board with that; however, if the presenting problem has to do with allocation of Mary’s resources of time and energy, it is hard to imagine how that wouldn’t affect both Jo and Claire. I would probably want Jo to be part of the therapy in some manner, even as an occasional visitor, so Jo would have a voice in my therapy room and I wouldn’t be operating on anyone else’s interpretation of what Jo wanted. I would feel most comfortable having Mary and Jo at the first visit, possibly with Claire present. This is an example of a situation where I might not be able to adequately assess the situation and make a recommendation for therapy without seeing all three, even though they are in a primary/secondary V.
I can also imagine an uncomfortable situation in which Claire and Mary want to come in for therapy but Jo does not want to participate for some reason. That reason might be simple, or it may be complicated; for instance, maybe Jo’s not happy about polyamory, despite obviously living in a polyamorous relationship that is functioning reasonably well. This is a thorny gray-area zone and one that I would navigate carefully on a case-by-case basis.
The interesting thing about polyamory is that it can look so many ways. There’s no rule book to refer to. If you find yourself in a complicated situation like this, think about the emotional boundaries of those involved. Are there conversations that should probably be happening? Do all the stakeholders have a voice in the matters that concern them? If not, is it by their own choice (as in a don’t ask, don’t tell agreement), or is someone else making the decision to leave them out of the decision-making process, either inadvertently or intentionally? Consider who makes decisions in the relevant relationships and who came to you as a client. Consider role-related challenges. For more on those, see chapter 17, “Role-Related Challenges and Benefits: Primaries, Secondaries, Hinges, Etc.”
Most importantly, make a decision that feels right and good to you. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you can already tell you are going to feel bad about the work you are doing. Don’t take on a client or situation just because they want you to, when your internal guidance system is screaming no! But don’t walk away from working with a situation that is complicated just because it is complicated, either. Many of the best functioning polyamorous relationships I know of started out with situations that were not ideal, sometimes in fairly dramatic ways.
Sometimes, after a consult call, I’m still not certain who to invite to therapy, or what the therapy would look like, or, in some cases, whether I want to work with the client. When this is the case, rather than engaging in therapy in a usual manner, I will instead do a 90-minute, 2-hour, or 3-hour one-time-only session as an assessment. I make sure the clients know there will be no obligation on my part, or theirs, to continue on to therapy. I tell them that at the end of our time together I will make recommendations for how to move forward, and those recommendations may or may not include working together. I set it up so I can be as creative as needed. If I’m not sure I want to work with the client but I know who would be in the room, I keep it on the shorter side because I will know by the end of 90 minutes if I want to work with them. This determination usually has to do with whether they have some insight into self-motivated goals (see the “How to Get the Most Out of Relationship Therapy or Coaching” worksheet in appendix D). If, on the other hand, I have no idea who ideally would be in the therapy, I will invite all contenders, and shift between group, individual, and dyadic configurations as needed for me to have it sorted out by the end of the session. In a situation like that, I might have chosen a three-hour format.
