Way to deal with mate struggling in river (9)
I believe the answer is:
treatment
'way' is the definition.
(treatment is a kind of way)
'mate struggling in river' is the wordplay.
'struggling' is an anagram indicator.
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'river' becomes 'trent' (I've seen this before**).
'mate' with letters rearranged gives 'atme'.
'atme' put into 'trent' is 'TREATMENT'.
'to deal with' acts as a link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for treatment that I've seen before include "Medication" , "The handling or management of something" , "NHS care?" , "course of drugs" , "Discussion" .)