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Families who visit their ill relative in a geriatric service are betwixt and between : they are not « patients » but they still may be suffering a great deal. While there are families who voluntarily approach the caretaking team, seeking information and/or recognition, or to express their anxiety and distress faced with the diminishing powers of their relative and his/her institutionalization, there are also families who emphatically keep their distance, in silence. Shame and guilt, mistrust at having a third party intrude into a dual relationship, depressive withdrawal, aggressive counter-investment, authoritarianism requiring distance because of the asymmetry of the relationship, these are problems and psychic processes which are often mobilized and which in fact need to be noted, thought about and worked on within the dynamics of the institution, in order to try and maintain an opportunity for confidence between caretakers and families, and to contain fusional idealization, splitting and projection.