Description
Book SynopsisDuring the course of psychoanalytic psychotherapy with couples, the practicing clinician is commonly faced with problems and issues that at times can seem nearly insoluble. In Object Relations and Relationality in Couple Therapy: Exploring the Middle Ground, James L. Poulton, PhD, surveys those problems and offers practical suggestions for their resolution. Through the use of extensive clinical material from couple cases, each chapter presents a specific issue, reviews the theoretical background that is essential for understanding it, and offers detailed illustrations of effective clinical interventions. The issues addressed by this book include the following: vthe influence of intergenerational trauma on the couple's functioning; vdynamics of violence and sacrifice within the couple; vthe narcissistic couple and disillusionment with the therapeutic process; vintensification of emotional stress that results when both partners share unconscious anxieties; vappropriate and inappropria
Trade ReviewThis book is a truly excellent example of what I believe to be a vital trend for the future of psychoanalytic therapy—the integration of different analytic orientations. James Poulton offers a masterful synthesis of object relations and relational approaches to couple therapy, blending the intrapsychic, the intersubjective, and the cultural. Object Relations and Relationality in Couple Therapy is filled with extensive case material illustrating how such a synthesis enhances clinical practice and also includes thorough examinations of timely topics such as trauma and hostility in couples, the nature and types of truth, shared internal objects, transference-countertransference entanglements, and therapist self-disclosure. Experienced therapists will deepen their couple work and new therapists will learn how to productively move the treatment to focus at times on the individuals, at times on the couple, and at times on the couple’s relationship with the therapist. -- Michael Stadter
An exceptionally clear, theoretically and clinically acute application of cutting-edge relational theory, focused on treating couples. Object Relations and Relationality in Couple Therapy has joined my collection of key reference sources. -- Richard Billow, postgraduate, Derner Institute
Authoritative and highly engaging, James Poulton navigates the choppy waters of intersubjectivity in therapeutic work with couples in a manner that will appeal to therapists of different persuasions and levels of experience. Applying a clear exposition of concepts from object relations and relational theories to detailed clinical vignettes he makes a compelling and illuminating case for valuing uncertainty in therapeutic practice. -- Christopher Clulow, Tavistock Centre of Couple Relationships, London
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface 1 Shared Ground: Commonalities in Object Relations and Relational Approaches to Couple Therapy 2 Negotiating Individual and Joint Transferences in Couple Therapy 3 Shared Objects, Amplified Fear 4 The Uses and Misuses of Self-Disclosure: The Value of Countertransference in a Relational World 5 The Narcissistic Couple, Disillusion and Shared Resistances 6 Crypts, Phantoms and Desire: Intergenerational Trauma in a Marital Relationship 7 Violence and Sacrifice in a Marital Relationship 8 The Cultural Third: Integrating Cultural Issues in Couple Therapy 9 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: Postmodern Lessons in Truth, Illusion and the Couple References Index About the Author
