Example seven

James had already had some dyadic sessions with his mother which had, amongst other things, highlighted the limited contact that existed between James and his father. They had hardly seen each other since Dad had left the family home five years previously.

The therapist agreed with Mum and James that it might be helpful to arrange some dyadic sessions with James and his dad. This proved possible and a meeting took place between the therapist and James’ father who said he would be happy to attend four initial sessions.

These sessions took place once a week and they both attended all of them. At first James and his dad seemed to want to channel all communication through the therapist. However when a joint engagement tasks was given they seemed to enjoy working together and began to talk directly to each other about aspects of the task. James dropped in little comments, updating dad about aspects of his life.

By session three they were talking much more to each other. They both said they were enjoying the joint work and would like to set up some more sessions.

In total they had 10 sessions, in their final session together they worked on a task they had decided upon themselves. They also reflected back on all the sessions. Dad commented that he felt he could talk much more easily to James now and that he would try to arrange for regular contact to be set up and maintained.