The role of secrets in the invention or reinvention of families

The authors propose that there are secrets in all families and discuss the link effects they produce as they are either transmitted transgenerationally or withheld from members of the family they actually concern. Secrets have determinant influences on the link configuration of families, on its dynamics, and, even, on its symptomatic formations. Often, an intentional or accidental revelation of secrets that were previously kept buried produce an explosive commotion within a family. Unmourned memories shape our destinies in disguised manners, and manifest themselves not as revelations of such secrets but as important psychological symptoms that pervade across generations. Different theoretical approaches are discussed and two clinical vignettes exemplify the text.

To be or not to be three: a clinical narrative, an unanswered question

The psychoanalytic literature deals with parenthood as a developmental stage but barely addresses the couple's preconception of fertility intentions. The author reviews the available literature from social research and psychoanalytic writing. Working with a couple over family of origin conflicts, she uncovers the hidden conflict over the wish to have or not have a child, reveals unconscious fantasies about the potential child, and deals with conflict in the otherwise compatible couple relationship itself. The author offers this clinical vignette to extend psychoanalytic understanding of the unconscious fantasies involved. She concludes with a discussion of transference towards the couple therapist as an infection to be avoided, an annoying parent to speed away from, and a disturbing child about whom the couple was ambivalent.

A brief psychodynamic intervention for couples with unresolved grief: a case study report

Two case reports of couples with unresolved grief who received a short-term psychoanalytically oriented intervention for couples are presented. The sixteenweek intervention is based on the unresolved grief triad (UGT) which links empirically based predictors of prolonged or complicated grief, including a history of unmourned losses and couple dynamics that prevent mourning, to couple manifestations of unresolved loss. In the first and second phases of therapy, experienced analytic couple therapists identified these factors and linked them into a unique UGT for the couple which is made explicit and worked with in the middle phase of treatment in relation to the day-to-day experiences that they bring to the sessions. In the final (third) phase of the intervention the loss of the therapy and therapist constitutes links that have been identified and processed with the couple during the intervention. The two case studies presented shared important similarities that offer insights into how couples become mired in unresolved grief. Their successful treatment using a short-term psychoanalytically based couple therapy suggests that the underpinning model on which it is based may be cost-effective in treating unresolved grief in couples.

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

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.

Shame, culture, and gender: rethinking the treatment model for couple therapy after an affair

Both the trauma-based and object relations treatment models for couple therapy after an affair can be counterproductive and insufficient because they do not adequately address the powerful motivators of behaviour embedded within cultural and gender norms. In this context, it is essential for therapists to be aware of the impact of culture on our sense of self and couple relationships. We need to make visible deeply internalised gender and cultural norms earlier in the therapeutic process. These hidden values often manifest themselves through the core emotion of shame. Understanding how shame operates intrapsychically, relationally, therapeutically, and socially is a critical task for practitioners. Couple therapy practice must go beyond the "trauma" of an affair to include the larger social cultural political reality.

The application of contemporary self psychology to couple psychotherapy

This article summarises what the author sees as contemporary self psychology's main contributions to understanding and treating couples. The concepts of selfobject experience and needs, the "forward edge" of even very dysfunctional behaviour, and the centrality of the sense of self, add to our understanding of couples and the reasons for their difficulties. In addition, the theory's emphasis on listening from the patient's point of view, empathic attunement, viewing the therapist as a source of selfobject experience for the patient, close attention to narcissistic vulnerability and the rupture and repair sequence, and a collaborative, experiencenear interpretive process are all at least as useful in couple treatment as they are in individual treatment. From this perspective, the goal of couple therapy is to improve the partners' abilities to function as a reliable source of attuned selfobject experience for each other by targeting the various factors that interfere with their doing so, detailed in this article. The article also proposes that in some cases, psychoeducation, coaching, or suggestions can be experienced by the partners as attuned selfobject responses and/or can facilitate such responses between them, and thus can be appropriately part of a fundamentally psychoanalytic couple treatment.

Fractured families, fractured systems: overcoming the silo mentality in family justice work

This article comments on the detrimental effects of inter-parental conflict, hostile parenting, and acrimonious divorce proceedings in terms of child outcomes, adult mental health, and quantifiable costs to the taxpayer. It refers to the growing concern that fragmentation within the family justice system works against supporting families through change. It draws upon the research conducted over many years by Tavistock Relationships in understanding the connection between family structures and professional systems, and suggests inter-agency collaboration as one way of mitigating obstacles. It puts forward the idea of developing cross-discipline consultative groups as a way of integrating services within the family justice system, and presents an example where this model has been informally trialled with some success.

Divorce in China

The process of divorce in China today has inherited a history of rules and policies which are not known in the West. Despite divorce patterns evolving towards guidelines and policies more familiar to the West, many important particulars of culture, custom, and law still govern the process in China, leading to a reluctance to divorce both by couples and by the judges who oversee divorce. This article lays out those policies and gives two clinical examples: one of almost certain divorce and the other exploring the effect of separation and divorce on a couple's child.

Creating a family state of mind: using psychoanalytic ideas to treat families where children resist or refuse contact with a parent

Separated families, where children resist or refuse visitation with one parent, present a complex treatment picture for clinicians. Application of psychoanalytic concepts can increase the clinician's understanding of the family members' response to the familial separation and inform the clinician's treatment decisions. The concepts of couple state of mind, projective gridlock, transgenerational transmission of trauma, and Nachträglichkeit, or après coup, are proposed as useful in appreciating the family members' individual and familial psychological responses to the trauma of parental separation. Multiple clinician functions necessary in the treatment of this complex family dynamic are explicated. A case example is included. Family state of mind is proposed as a newly named function for the clinician as well as the family members.

Notes on working with divorcing and separating couples

Psychoanalytic couple psychotherapy has provided a rich body of work in relation to couple functioning. Simultaneously, the application of these principles to the field of separation and divorce has been underdeveloped. This article therefore briefly describes the work of a clinical service developed specifically for separating couples which adheres to the core psychoanalytic principles previously established. In doing so, important emphases emerge in relation to conceptualisation of the projective cycle, the therapist's internal setting, and the external setting and process of the clinical work itself.