Laying the foundations for working with Amour Monstre

This first major chapter lays the foundations for working with Amour Monstre. It helps you understand what the tool makes possible, and why it works: creating a third party that helps people talk about the relationship instead of staying stuck in facts, blame or justifications.

Theoretical foundations: a systemic compass

This second major chapter lays the systemic foundations needed to use Amour Monstre accurately, beyond enthusiasm for the tool. It clarifies the different “levels” of cybernetic reading.

The goal is simple: to give you a compass for choosing your stance and calibrating your intervention. You will find the basic guideposts that make the game safe to use — curiosity, non-blame, responsibility — and you will understand why Amour Monstre works as a floating object: a third party that shifts the discussion from face-to-face confrontation to a shared exploration, more nuanced, more containing, and more open to transformation.

Amour Monstre as a floating object

This third chapter enters the heart of the tool: Amour Monstre as a floating object. The point is no longer only to understand the theoretical foundations, but to grasp what the game concretely changes in a session. By using metaphor and image as a third party, Amour Monstre creates a safer, more nuanced space for speech, where the relationship can be explored without immediately tipping into accusation, defence or justification. This chapter shows how the cards serve to externalise the bond, to bring out associations, and to progressively build a shared definition of the relationship, clear enough to open new movements and new choices.

The basic protocol: a backbone for the session

Chapter 4 presents the basic protocol for using Amour Monstre in a simple, reliable and reproducible way. It clarifies how to set up the frame (instructions, pace, rules of speech), how to make the game a protective third party rather than a debating tool, and how to guide the exploration with questions that open without imposing. The goal is to provide a “backbone” for the session: structured enough to make people and the therapist feel safe, flexible enough to adapt to clinical situations. This protocol then serves as a foundation for all the more creative variations proposed later in the training.

The art of systemic questions

This chapter is devoted to the art of questions, that is, to the way the therapist crafts a space where the relationship can be thought differently. With Amour Monstre, questions are not there to « extract » a truth or to settle a conflict, but to transform the conversation: moving from blame to loop, from certainty to nuance, from a frozen account to a story that can move.

You will find a simple structure (families of questions) and very concrete know-how: translating a complaint into a relational question, opening differences of viewpoint without blame, and supporting the emergence of a new narrative. The goal is to learn to question precisely enough to be useful, and openly enough to leave people the possibility of co-constructing meaning and choices.

Uses by context: a clinical guide

This chapter offers clinical instructions according to the contexts of use, to avoid the idea that one protocol would work everywhere. The goal is to understand what the tool allows in each frame — individual, couple, family, supervision — and how to adjust the setting: which bond is put to work, what level of protection is needed, what pace to establish, and what type of questions to favour.

You will learn to keep a coherence with the spirit of Amour Monstre while modulating your stance and your instructions, so that the cards remain a reassuring third party that increases clarity, nuance, and the range of possible choices.

Advanced integrations

This chapter on advanced integrations shows how Amour Monstre can be combined with other approaches without losing its function as a third party. The goal is to move from a « tool in itself » to a tool that fits into a therapeutic strategy: circularity to multiply viewpoints, externalisation to create an alliance against the problem, the solution-focused approach to amplify what works, working with space to make the dynamic visible, and transgenerational anchoring via the genogram. Above all, this chapter teaches you to choose an integration according to the clinical objective of the moment, rather than stacking techniques.

Ethics and deontology

This chapter on ethics reminds us that the use of Amour Monstre is never « neutral »: a tool can open up speech, but it can also expose, activate or endanger if the frame is not suited. It sets a central marker: the clinical priority is safety and dignity, especially when there is trauma, power asymmetry or suspicion of violence. You will learn to work within a trauma-informed frame (pace, choice, titration, the right to withdraw), to spot the signs of derailment and take back control of the setting, and to assume a responsible non-neutrality when it comes to protecting rather than « pitting people against each other ». The simple idea running through the whole chapter: the tool is good when it increases the possible choices; if it does the opposite, we slow down, adjust, or change the frame.

Interview simulations

This chapter on interview simulations is the bridge between theory and the clinical gesture. The goal is to show you, in situation, how the frame holds: how to introduce the game, how to set the instructions, how to question without boxing in, and how to handle moments of emotion or tension. The simulations are not there to « copy a recipe », but to spot micro-skills: pace, choice of follow-ups, reformulations, protection of speech, and adjustments of the setting according to context. In other words, you will see how Amour Monstre becomes a living tool, integrated into your stance, rather than a mere card support.