Families were there are two mothers, one biological and the other social, such as those created through adoption, fostering, blended families, and lesbian families are now ubiquitous. Little is known however about how the mothers negotiate their relationship as maternal dyads. This pilot study used Hollway and Jefferson’s (2009) psychosocial approach to understand the relationships between two women who are both ‘mother’ to the same child through open adoption. The information provided by the mothers in the study required a different framework for analysis than that of the defended subject used by Hollway and Jefferson. This paper will discuss the particular ethical concerns of using a psychosocial approach in Aotearoa/New Zealand and, the adoption of Bateman and Fogaty’s (2006) mentalizing approach as a framework for analysis.