Sessions with couples are often peppered with periods of high intensity as they bring conflicts and distress out in the open. These times are emotionally and psychologically challenging for the couple and the therapist potentially triggering defensiveness for all three in the room. The therapist's level of maturity plays a key role, along with clinical knowledge and technique in being able to manage these periods effectively in service of the couple. This paper explores what is required of the therapist in terms of reliability and attunement at times of intensity, and suggests that systemic practitioners have much to gain by leaning more in to the analytic skills of holding and containment to balance the cognitive strengths of systemic practice.1 Relationship counselling is complex, intricate work, often with a lot at stake for our clients. 2 Sessions are often peppered with periods of intensity, which represent important opportunities for constructive change. These require more of the therapist personally and professionally to manage them well. 3 A therapist's emotional and psychological maturity, as much as her clinical knowledge and technique, influences how she attunes to the couple and how she manages these times of intensity in sessions. 4 The analytic concepts of holding and containment offer systemic practitioners a way to understand the implicit, (unconscious) felt layers of the therapeutic alliance, in addition to the cognitive strengths of systemic practice. 5 The functions of holding and containment enable the establishment of a safe therapeutic space for the couple, particularly at times of intensity, and an inner holding for the therapist.Couple sessions are often peppered with heightened emotion, ambiguity, and conflicted communication. Arguably, these moments require more of the person of the therapist to see these periods through effectively in therapy. Couples, by right, expect a therapist who will not be overwhelmed, as they are, by the depth and intensity of their pain and distress. The intensity focused on here is not associated with abuse or domestic and family violence, which requires a 'safety first' response. Intense periods for the purposes of this paper are those with high levels of emotion and conflict that feel unmanageable to the couple, but are within a safe range of behaviours. Achieving this takes a significant level of emotional and psychological maturity as a therapist. Elisabeth Shaw (personal communication, January 20, 2014) offers a definition of emotional and psychological maturity to mean having the ability to tolerate the intensity and complexity of the couple dynamics, attune accurately enough to the couple,