From speech to play

Contemporary couple therapy, shaped by the social transformations of the love bond and by family reconfigurations, is constantly looking for new tools to support communication in conjugal systems in distress. Introducing play as a therapeutic medium is a fruitful path, particularly through floating objects, those concrete devices that make it possible to externalise tensions, foster symbolisation and reintroduce creativity into exchanges.

Amour Monstre, a therapeutic game designed by the psychologist Ivy Daure (2025), belongs to this current. Through its illustrated cards and open questions, it invites couples to explore their relationship in a playful, tender and reflective way.

What a floating object is

The concept was introduced by Philippe Caillé and Yveline Rey (2004) in the field of systemic family therapy. It designates a symbolic and interactive tool — often a playful or visual support — that allows participants to express themselves from a third object, easing the circulation of speech while decentring conflictual stakes. The floating object belongs neither to the therapist nor to the members of the system: it becomes a mediating space, floating at the heart of the relationship, available to each. It is, according to the authors, a “relational transitional tool”.

These devices are anchored in a vision of therapy as a language game and a shared narration, where the point is less to interpret than to co-construct. Through metaphors, symbols or unusual questions, the floating object mobilises analogic communication (Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson, 1967) and acts as a disturber of the frame (Bromberg, 1998), opening new spaces of utterance.

The game itself

Amour Monstre consists of illustrated cards depicting a small colourful monster staged in symbolic situations, accompanied by questions inviting introspection and exchange. The artwork, by Nicolas Saudane, combines humour, tenderness and expressiveness to encourage projective identification. The questions address the essential dimensions of couple life: affection, recognition, sexuality, wounds, memories, plans.

According to Daure (2025), the game aims to “encourage dialogue within the couple and about the couple”, whether in a therapy session, at home, in a group, or even alone, to revisit one’s own relation to love. It thus creates a symbolic and emotional distance that makes speech possible where direct confrontation becomes too threatening.

Clinical applications: mediation, narration and ritual

Using such a floating object in couple therapy opens three types of intervention, which can be combined over the course of the same work.

Towards a playful culture of relationship

By taking its place in the tradition of floating objects, Amour Monstre embodies a clinical orientation that grants narration, play and shared affect an essential function in the transformation of relational systems. It takes part in a wider movement opening therapy to more sensitive, embodied and participatory forms, in which the imagination becomes a therapeutic operator.

This kind of tool also invites us to question the boundary between therapy and relational education. Can devices such as this one be considered a form of affective pedagogy or of an ecology of the bond? In this sense, the floating object goes beyond the therapeutic frame stricto sensu and can become a cultural mediator of human relationships.

Beneath its playful, illustrated exterior, Amour Monstre therefore offers a deeply structuring device for conjugal exchanges. It belongs to a contemporary systemic perspective, combining narration, affect and symbolisation, and constitutes a valuable clinical tool for helping professionals. Used thoughtfully, it opens fruitful perspectives for thinking about therapy differently, in an alliance of depth and lightness. Putting it into practice in session is the subject of a piece of its own.

References

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. Ballantine Books.

Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., & Krasner, B. (1986). Between give and take: a clinical guide to contextual therapy. Brunner/Mazel.

Bromberg, P. M. (1998). Standing in the spaces: essays on clinical process, trauma, and dissociation. Analytic Press.

Caillé, P., & Rey, Y. (2004). Les objets flottants: méthodes d’entretiens systémiques. Fabert.

Daure, I. (2025). Amour Monstre — Couple, relation, vérités [therapeutic card game]. Artesã Editora.

Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J. H., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication. Norton.

Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J. H., & Fisch, R. (1974). Change: principles of problem formation and problem resolution. Norton.

White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. Norton.

A demonstration of the game and its uses can be watched below — in French.