By Ari Sotiriou, UK Accredited Psychotherapist
In my practice with couples, a common impasse arises when one partner asks for empathy and the other offers a “fix.” On the surface, this looks like a communication breakdown—a simple failure to choose the right words. However, when we look beneath the surface through a psychodynamic lens, we often find a much deeper struggle: a deficit in the capacity for emotional containment.
To explore this, let’s look at a composite case study of “David” and “Sarah.”
The Clinical Picture: A House Divided by Logic
David, a high-achieving manager originally from West Africa, and Sarah, a professional from New York State, sought therapy in the UK following the birth of their second child. Their home was a site of high efficiency but low intimacy. David worked long hours to ensure the family’s financial security and was proactive with domestic chores upon his return. Sarah, balancing a demanding career with the relentless needs of a toddler and an infant, felt “drowning” in exhaustion.
The conflict followed a predictable loop: Sarah would express her overwhelm; David would immediately respond with a list of logistical solutions or point out that Sarah’s own career decisions had created this stress. Sarah experienced this as “gaslighting” and a denial of her reality. David felt unappreciated, seeing his solutions as the ultimate act of love and provision.
The Theory: Containment and the ‘Non-Thinking’ Fix
In the British Psychoanalytic tradition, Wilfred Bion introduced the concept of The Container and the Contained. In a healthy relationship, when one partner is overwhelmed by “beta-elements” (raw, unprocessed feelings of panic, exhaustion, or grief), they need their partner to act as a container.
The container’s job is to take in that raw distress, process it (alpha-function), and return it to the partner in a more tolerable, “thinkable” form.
In our case study, David struggled to be a container. Because of his own cultural and personal history—perhaps rooted in a “provider” script where vulnerability was a luxury he couldn’t afford—Sarah’s distress felt like a direct threat to his competence. To protect himself from the discomfort of her pain, he used “Fixing” as a psychic shield.
By offering a solution, David was essentially saying, “I cannot tolerate the weight of your feeling, so I will make it go away with logic.” For Sarah, this felt like a psychic erasure. She didn’t need a manager; she needed a witness.
The Intersectional Shadow: Power and Autonomy
The tension was further complicated by their different backgrounds. Sarah’s American, egalitarian upbringing made her sensitive to any dynamic that felt like “man-explaining” or a return to 1950s gender roles. To her, David’s solutions felt like an assertion of patriarchal authority.
Conversely, David’s experience as a Black man in a high-pressure UK corporate environment likely required him to be a “perpetual problem solver” to survive and succeed. Bringing that “managerial” self home was his way of keeping the family safe, yet it inadvertently stifled the emotional oxygen in the marriage.
The Shift: Moving Toward ‘The Third’
For a couple like David and Sarah—or any couple stuck in the Fixer/Feeler loop—the “Relational Handshake” or communication protocols can sometimes backfire. If the underlying capacity to sit with discomfort isn’t there, the protocol becomes just another task to be managed.
The change required is a move toward what Winnicott might call the “Potential Space”—a third space where the couple can sit with a problem without immediately trying to kill it with a solution. It requires the “Fixer” to develop the capacity for Negative Capability (a term Bion borrowed from Keats): the ability to be in uncertainties and mysteries without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
Conclusion
When we stop trying to “fix” our partner, we finally allow ourselves to “meet” them. Releasing the tension in a relationship often requires the braver act of doing nothing—simply staying in the room with the pain until it becomes thinkable for both.
Moving from Theory to Practice
Understanding the “why” behind your relationship tension is a vital first step, but shifting a long-standing dynamic requires a different kind of “doing.” If you find that standard communication protocols feel like a performance—or if you feel that your partner is “fixing” your feelings rather than hearing them—it may be time to work on your Capacity for Containment.
I have developed a structured worksheet to help you and your partner identify the “Fixer vs. Feeler” roles you may have fallen into. This resource includes reflective prompts on power and gender dynamics, alongside a 15-minute Containment Exercise designed to build the emotional “muscle” needed for true intimacy.
Access the Capacity for Containment Worksheet here
Photo by cottonbro studio via Pexels
Take the Next Step Together
If the themes of containment and emotional “capacity” resonate with your current relationship dynamic, you don’t have to navigate the shift alone. I provide specialized Psychodynamic Individual and Couples Therapy tailored to the complexities of modern partnerships.
Whether you are based in the United Kingdom or seeking International support, I offer consultations via a secure, encrypted video link to ensure your privacy and safety remain paramount.
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