Systemic tool · Amour Monstre
Mastering Amour Monstre: learning to use a floating object in systemic therapy
When a session freezes, it is not necessarily because people are resisting. Often it is because the available language is no longer enough. The couple recounts the facts, piles up the evidence, reactivates the wounds — and going on asking good questions is not always sufficient.
At such moments you have to change medium, change level of language, and create a third party. That is precisely what floating objects in systemic therapy make possible.
A floating object is a clinical mediator: a concrete, symbolic or metaphorical third party that “floats” because it belongs to no one. It becomes neither one partner’s argument nor the other’s defence. It moves the conversation from face-to-face confrontation towards a shared gaze. You no longer fight to be right, you observe together what is happening in the relationship. And that shift often changes everything: pace, safety, nuance, the capacity to think.
Amour Monstre was designed by Ivy Daure with a clear intention: to help people speak about the relationship, not only about what the other said or did. The heart of the tool is the move from content to relationship. The card stands for the third party that the bond itself is: not you, not me, but the alchemy between us, our modes of interaction, and the effect of context on our way of being together.
This detour through the image engages another level of language. The image, and the metaphor it triggers, often makes it possible to express ambivalence, fear, distance, shame, loyalty, attachment, control, exhaustion… where rational language defends itself, accuses, or shuts down.
“The image does not replace speech: it makes another kind of speech possible.”
The working principle of Amour Monstre
To support practitioners who wish to take up the game, an online training is devoted entirely to it. Here is what it covers.
What the training works on
1
Understanding the DNA of Amour Monstre
Why this tool exists, what the title “Amour Monstre” allows — ambivalence and making things visible — why the universal form opens up projections, and how the material and the set-up are already part of the intervention.
2
Consolidating systemic foundations
The tool is placed within a cybernetic reading: spotting loops (first order), including the therapist’s effect within the system (second order), taking into account issues of context, power, norms and safety (third cybernetics). That base becomes a practical compass: what am I increasing or decreasing through the way I intervene?
3
Mastering the tool as a floating object
The image becomes a shared support that both protects and opens. You learn to use metaphor as access to the meta position: defining the relationship, its implicit rules, its vulnerabilities, its resources, instead of remaining stuck in events.
4
Setting up a simple, robust protocol
Two key points: how the game is introduced (instructions, pace, safety) and how questions are asked. This is the base that makes the tool reliable without making it rigid.
5
Developing the art of systemic questions
A central skill: turning the complaint into a relational question, moving out of “you are the problem” to map “how this is manufactured between us”. And fostering a new narrative, leaving the problem-saturated story to recover exceptions, nuances and options.
6
Adjusting use to contexts
The same tool is not handled in the same way one-to-one, with a couple, with a family, or in supervision. A clinical guide by context sets out objectives, frame, points of vigilance, types of question and the protection required.
7
Integrating it into a systemic toolbox
Concrete articulations: genogram, circular questioning, externalising the problem, solution-focused approach, work with space (positioning, distances, staging). The idea is not to pile up techniques but to choose an integration according to the clinical objective of the moment.
8
Working with a clear ethical compass
Sensitive areas are addressed head-on: trauma, slippages, non-neutrality, responsibility. Amour Monstre can help evoke, spot and open up speech, but it must never expose. You learn to slow down, contain, adjust the set-up, and change the frame when necessary.
9
Watching simulated sessions
Because between understanding and knowing how, there is micro-clinical work: instructions, prompts, reformulations, handling tension, protecting what is said. Simulations make visible the small choices that change the trajectory of a session.
Who it is for
For professionals who work with relationships: couple and family therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, professionals in medico-social and support work, practitioners in systemic training, supervisors. If your practice confronts you with ambivalent bonds, frozen narratives, escalations, silences, or situations where language falls short, the floating object becomes a very concrete clinical investment.
The format is entirely online and pre-recorded, with immediate and unlimited access, updates included. The details are set out on the training page. The visual presentation is just below, in French.
How to cite this article
Besse, J. (2026, January 18). Mastering Amour Monstre: learning to use a floating object in systemic therapy. Complexe Systémique. https://app.complexe-systemique.com/en_GB/articles/mastering-amour-monstre-learning-to-use-a-floating-object-in-systemic-therapy
To go further
- Amour Monstre: a playful floating object for relational therapyA detailed presentation of the game designed by Ivy Daure and of its clinical uses.
- Floating objects in systemic therapyWhere the notion of the floating object comes from, and why it changes the way a session is run.
- Therapy without talking: possible?When speech is no longer enough, how change can still be reached within a family.
- Sewing buttons: a floating object for systemic family therapyA handful of buttons is sometimes all it takes to make the map of family bonds appear.
Related training courses
Certifying course
Live now
Training in Systemic Therapy and Interventions – Cycle 1
Certifying training cycle in systemic therapy and interventions – year 1. Courses, supervision and practice, aligned with EFTA/SFTF. In French.
Certifying course
Training in Systemic Therapy and Interventions – Cycle 2
Certifying training cycle in systemic therapy and interventions – year 2. Clinical complexity, supervision and practice. EFTA/SFTF aligned. In French.
Certifying course
Training in Systemic Therapy and Interventions – Cycle 3
Certifying training cycle in systemic therapy and interventions – year 3. In-depth intervention, supervision and practice. EFTA/SFTF aligned. In French.
Certifying course
Training in Systemic Therapy and Interventions – Cycle 4
Certifying training cycle in systemic therapy and interventions – year 4. Clinical integration, supervision and certification. EFTA/SFTF. In French.
Comments 0
Log in to join the discussion. Log in