Creative illusion in couples: thoughts about the value of transitional experience for couple relationships

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-169
Author(s):  
Julie Friend
Keyword(s):  
Couple Relationships ◽  
External Reality ◽  
Intermediate Area ◽  
Transitional Experience ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the importance of transitional experience—the intermediate area between internal and external reality, and a necessary and vitalising arena throughout life—in couple relationships. It considers the relationship between containment, transitional experience, and creativity, and how these ideas might add an element to Morgan's "creative couple" concept. Enlisting the thinking of Winnicott, Bion, and more current thinkers such as Goldman, Ogden, Peltz, and others, technical implications such as the importance of flexibility in emphasis between prioritising interpretation of projective processes and in non-verbal avenues of containment are explored.

“I’ve got you under my skin”: borderline states in couple relationships

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Perrine Moran
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Couple Relationships ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
The Relationship

Many couples who come for therapy are struggling with separating from unconscious phantasies and beliefs that enmesh each partner with the other, resulting in states that popular songs powerfully epitomise. While this borderline experience is common and functional in the early stages of being in love its persistence paralyses the development of the relationship. Facing separation from and loss of illusion is a challenge couple therapists are often asked to help with. The argument is illustrated by a case, and by references to some of Cole Porter’s best known songs.

Face Substances. The rhetoric of Kapists’ self-portraits: between self-reflection and confession

2021 ◽  
pp. 51-67
Author(s):  
Łukasz Kiepuszewski
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
External Reality ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Artistic Activity ◽  
The Relationship

Self-portraits are specific kinds of pictures where the subject’s experience is closely combined with the act of painting. Such works constitute a mixture of internal iconic power with external reality, e.g. the artist’s body, his thought, and theory, etc. This applies in particular to self-portraits painted by the members of the Paris Committee since the idiomatic nature of painting was the primary quality on which they based the language and poetics of their art. This paper analyses selected self-portraits by Józef Czapski (1896–1993), Zygmunt Waliszewski (1897–1936), Piotr Potworowski (1898–1964), Artur Nacht-Samborski (1898– 1974), and Jan Cybis (1897–1972). The focus on the strategy of incorporating physiognomy into the matter of painting stems from the fact that on this particular level the intensification of the relationship between the author’s image and his painterly gesture gains the strongest self-reflective potential. This allows for a reading of self-portraits as developing the artist’s reflections about art and himself, included in theoretical writings and intimate journals. Analyses presented in this paper can, therefore, be defined as an attempt to recreate rhetoric of the painterly trace on the basis of choices particular for given work. In this optic, crucial are these aspects of painting that manifest a form of the author’s subjective investment in artistic activity: from emphasising the distance through which the painting presents itself as a code offered to the viewer to decipher (as in Nacht-Samborski’s work) through to declarations to blur the boundary between the artist and the work, which results in an almost organic communion of the body and the matter of painting (Cybis).

scholarly journals ‘Welcome to the World’: parents' experiences of an antenatal nurturing programme

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 353-361
Author(s):  
Franziska Wadephul ◽  
Catriona Jones ◽  
Julie Jomeen
Keyword(s):  
Transition To Parenthood ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Postnatal Period ◽  
Support Networks ◽  
Safe Space ◽  
Couple Relationships ◽  
Emotional Wellbeing ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Parents Experiences

Background The transition to parenthood lays the foundations for the parent-infant relationship, but can also be a time of increased vulnerability. It can therefore be a suitable time for interventions to increase parents' emotional wellbeing and support couple relationships as well as the relationship with the baby. Aims This study aimed to explore the experiences of attendees at an antenatal nurturing programme and its effect on their experiences of the early postnatal period. Methods A total of 36 attendees took part in six focus groups across the UK. Findings Participants' experiences of the programme were very positive; it provided knowledge and skills and gave participants a safe space in which to explore feelings and concerns. The programme encouraged participants to nurture themselves, as well as their babies and their relationships. Some groups formed strong support networks, while others did not. Conclusion Participants felt they had benefitted from the programme, particularly in terms of their emotional wellbeing and couple relationships.

The Relationship Process in Healthy Couple Relationships: A Grounded Theory

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 338-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Young ◽  
David M. Kleist
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Couple Relationships ◽  
The Relationship

scholarly journals Expressions of commitment and independence: Exploring men’s emotional responsibility in heterosexual couple relationships

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tove Thagaard ◽  
Kari Stefansen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
Couple Relationships ◽  
Emotional Labour ◽  
Heterosexual Couple ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Personal Interests

This paper examines men’s contributions to the division of emotional labour in heterosexual couple relationships by exploring the dimensions of commitment and independence, and how couples deal with challenges. The study is based on individual interviews with each of the partners in ten urban middle-class couples in Norway. The results indicate diversity in middle-class men’s approaches to emotional responsibility, which is expressed through three models. The model of shared responsibility implies that the man’s contributions in the relationship represent expressions of responsive commitment. The man finds a balance between giving priority to his personal interests and considering shared interests; a pattern we refer to as collaborative independence, and he shares the responsibility for coping with challenges with his partner. The model of gendered responsibility implies that the man’s contributions in the relationship are characterized by non-responsive commitment. The man gives priority to his personal interests in a way we refer to as conflicting independence, and refrains from sharing the responsibility for coping with challenges with his partner. Finally, a third model, termed partial responsibility, is also evident in the data. This model is a combination of collaborative independence and non-responsive commitment, and may represent a phase of transition towards collaboration on an equal basis. A discussion of interpretations of the diversity in men’s approaches to commitment and independence concludes the paper.

What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Couple Therapy

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Kim Halford ◽  
Christopher A. Pepping
Keyword(s):  
Couple Therapy ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Couple Relationship ◽  
Couple Relationships ◽  
Art And Science ◽  
Relationship Distress ◽  
Relationship Problems ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis invited paper is a review of the significance of couple relationships to the practice of all therapists. The article begins with a summary of the evidence on the centrality of committed couple relationships to the lives and wellbeing of adults, and the association of the quality of the parents’ couple relationship on the wellbeing of children. We argue that the well-established reciprocal association between individual problems and couple relationship problems means that all therapists need to pay attention to how a couple relationship might be influencing a client's functioning, even if the relationship is not the presenting problem. There is an outline the evolution of current approaches to behavioural couple therapy, and the current state of the art and science of couple therapy. We present an analysis of the evidence for couple therapy as a treatment for relationship distress, as well as couple-based treatments for individual problems. This is followed by a description of the distinctive challenges in working with couples and how to address those challenges, and recommendations about how to address the needs of diverse couple relationships. Finally, we propose some core therapist competencies needed to work effectively with couples.

Psychological Well-Being, Self-Concept, and Couple Relations in University Students

2018 ◽  
pp. 174-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucía Herrera Torres ◽  
Laila Mohamed Mohand ◽  
Sergio Cepero Espinosa
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Couple Relationships ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
University Campus ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Professional Self ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the psychological well-being of university students, their self-concept and certain behaviours and attitudes of violence in couple relationships by gender and cultural group (European vs. Amazigh) as well as to determine the relationship amongst the three constructs evaluated. For it, 100 university students of the University Campus of Melilla, Spain, participated in the research. The Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS), the Test of Self-Concept Form 5 (AF-5), and the Dating Violence Questionnaire (DVQ) were the instruments used for the data collection. Main results showed differences by gender on the Degree of distress experienced by the presence of violent behaviours and attitudes in couple relationships, the Academic/Professional Self-concept and Self-Esteem. Regarding cultural group, differences were showed on the Couple Relationships Scale of PWBS. In addition, different correlations were found. Finally, the need to address the elements analyzed at the university context is discussed.

Viewing the Absence of Sex from Couple Relationships Through the "Core Complex" Lens

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amita Sehgal
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Couple Relationships ◽  
Core Complex ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Principal Problem ◽  
The Core ◽  
Assessment Interview ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Clinical Cases

This paper attempts to understand the absence of sex in intimate couple relationships from a pre-oedipal perspective, using Glasser's (1979) concept of the "core complex". It draws on two clinical cases, one where the couple named lack of sex as the principal problem during their assessment interview, and another where the partners' sex was absent from their long-standing relationship once therapy was well underway. These two clinical cases are thought about using a contemporary Freudian perspective, where the anxieties that arise in the earliest relationship between infant and mother are believed to contribute to the claustro-agoraphobic anxieties in adult relating. Additionally, the unconscious dynamics that may be operating in couple relationships in which sex is absent is explored in the context of the relationship where partners seem intently caught up in the struggle of balancing their need for intimacy alongside preserving their sense of self.

Personality Disorder: A Diagnosis of Disordered Relating

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Ruszczynski
Keyword(s):  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Clinical Work ◽  
Couple Relationship ◽  
Couple Relationships ◽  
Central Characteristic ◽  
Psychoanalytic Experience ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

In this paper the author develops some of the themes discussed in an earlier paper (Ruszczynski, 2006) in which he explored violence in the couple relationship. As in that paper, he is interested in considering whether some of what can be learned from working clinically with especially disturbed forensic and anti-social patients, can be adapted to clinical work with some types of more disturbed couple relationships and with some parts of the relationship of perhaps many couples. The question explored is, if action predominates over reflection—a central characteristic of the types of patients described, that is, those who act out—how do clinicians offer a psychoanalytic experience to such patients for whom the capacity for symbolisation, thought, and reflection is, at best, partial or fragmented?

scholarly journals THE REIFICATION OF FATE IN EARLY CHINA

Early China ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 147-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mercedes Valmisa
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
First Century ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Early China ◽  
Common Pattern ◽  
External Reality ◽  
The World ◽  
Cases Study ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractEarly Chinese texts make us witnesses to debates about the power, or lack thereof, that humans had over the course of events, the outcomes of their actions, and their own lives. In the midst of these discourses on the limits of the efficacy of human agency, the notion of ming 命 took a central position.In this article, I present a common pattern of thinking about the relationship between the person and the world in early China. I call it the reifying pattern because it consisted in thinking about ming as a hypostasized entity with object-like features. Although external and independent, ming was not endowed with human qualities such as the capacities for empathy, responsivity, and intersubjectivity. The reification of fate implied an understanding of ming as an external, amoral, and determining force that limited humans without accepting intercommunication with them, thereby causing feelings of alienation, powerlessness, and existential incompetence.I first show that the different meanings of ming hold a sense of prevailing external reality, and hence can be connected to the overarching meaning of fate. Then, I offer an account of the process of reification of fate in early China and its consequences, theoretical and practical, through cases study of received (Mengzi 孟子) and found (Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道) texts. I end with some reflections on the implications of ming as a nonpersonal and nonsubjective type of actor for both early Chinese and twenty-first-century accounts of agency.

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