Being in Love: Therapeutic Pathways Through Psychological Obstacles to Love

289 Pages·2008·7.8 MB·English

by  Judith Pickering

Being in Love
Finding true love is a journey of transformation obstructed by numerous
psychological obstacles. Being in Love expands the traditional field of
psychoanalytic couple therapy, and explores therapeutic methods of
working through the obstacles leading to true love.
Becoming who we are is an inherently relational journey: we uncover our
truest nature and become most authentically real through the difficult and
fearful, yet transformative intersubjective crucibles of our intimate
relationships. In this book, Judith Pickering draws comparisons between
Bion's concept of becoming in 0, and being in love. She searches for
pathways that lead away from relational confusion towards the discovery
of genuine relationships, and works towards finding better ways of relating
to one another. This is achieved by encouraging couples to enjoy the actual
presence, humanity, otherness and particularity of each other rather than
expecting a partner to conform to our own expectations, projections,
desires and presuppositions.
Pickering draws on clinical material, contemporary psychoanalysis, cultural
themes from the worlds of mythology and literature, and a wealth of
therapeutic techniques in this fresh approach to couple therapy. Being in
Love will therefore interest students and practitioners of psychoanalysis,
psychology, and couple therapy, as well as all of those seeking to be more
authentic in their relationships.
Judith Pickering is a psychoanalytic couple therapist, Jungian analyst and
psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Sydney. She is a senior
supervisor and lecturer for the Australia and New Zealand Association of
Psychotherapy. She is a member of the Australian and New Zealand
Association of Jungian Analysts and the International Association for
Analytical Psychology.
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Being in Love
Therapeutic pathways through
psychological obstacles to love
Judith Pickering
First published 2008 by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
Copyright © 2008 Judith Pickering
Typeset in Times by Garfield Morgan, Swansea, West Glamorgan
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
Paperback cover design by Sandra Heath
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pickering, Judith, 1959-
Being in love: therapeutic pathways through psychological obstacles to
love I Judith Pickering.
p.; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-37160-5 (hardback) - ISBN 978-0-415-37161-2 (pbk.)
1. Marital psychotherapy. 2. Love-Psychological aspects. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Couples Therapy. 2. Interpersonal Relations. 3. Love.
WM430.5.M3 P595b 2008]
RC488.5.P52 2008
616.89'1562-dc22
2007045125
ISBN: 978-0-415-37160-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-37161-2 (pbk)
The whole world is a market-place for Love,
For naught that is, from Love remains remote.
The Eternal Wisdom made all things in Love:
On Love they all depend, to Love all turn.
The earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars
The centre of their orbit find in Love.
By Love are all bewildered, stupefied,
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each, a mystic silence Love demands,
What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer Thou' and 'I' exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now I will draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.
(Attar, Jawhar al-Dhlit, Kulliylit, as cited in Perry, 1971, p. 633)
Eternal gratitude to all who inspire the quest for wisdom and love,
teachers in many guises, 'Mayall find love's beatitude'.
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Contents
What is love? IX
JAMES S. GROTSTEIN
Acknowledgements Xlll
PART I 1
Being in love
Prelude - shooting the albatross 3
Introduction: a question of true love? 5
1 Love's many facets 18
2 The marriage of alterity and altruism 38
3 Subject relations 53
4 Falling in love: an exogamous initiation 65
PART II 81
The path of love: an obstacle course
5 Love's therapeutics 83
6 Love's uncanny choices 96
7 Veils of projection 104
8 Relational configurations 120
9 Interlocking scenes: a malignant dowry 131
viii Contents
10 A hall of mirrors 151
11 The narcissism of Echo 165
12 Thresholds of intimacy: Bluebeard's Castle 182
13 Don't look back: Orpheus and Eurydice 191
PART III 209
Transformations in love
14 Exogamy: a marriage of all loves 211
15 The iconoclasm of Joy 227
16 Laetitia, liveliness and love 238
17 Aletheia: becoming in love 247
Bibliography 251
Index 264
What is love?
James S. Grotstein
'What is this thing called love?'
After reading and then pondering over Judith Pickering's lyrical, evocative
and highly informative book on the psychology of love, I was moved to
think of (Bion would have said, 'dreamed') the following ideas in my
admiring and respectful response.
Love is one of the most singularly baffling yet most natural emotional
states the human being has to contend with (is afflicted with?). It is said that
love is a 'moving violation'. It is a violation of our illusion of our inde
pendence. There is reason to believe that in the final analysis it is the most
fundamental, the ground zero, of our emotions and that all the symptoms
our patients bring to us are inescapably tied to love as a defence against the
emotional perils, torment, frustration, and humiliation that ineluctably
become love's aftermath when thwarted. Bion often propounded that man is
born a dependent creature and that he always was in need of a mate as long
as he lived. We now have evidence from empirical science that this is true.
Infant development researchers such as Colwyn Trevarthen, Daniel Stern,
and others now say that there is evidence that the infant is born with what I
would interpret as an intersubjective instinct. John Bowlby and his illustrious
followers similarly affirm that the infant is born ready to attach to his
primary caregiving object, who in turn is biologically as well as psycho
logically primed to bond with him or her. Stein Braten, the Norwegian
anthropologist, states that empirical scientific evidence supports the notion
that humans are born with the inherent pre-conception of a partner in mind
- that is, the infant is born with an empty place pre-ordained for another.
Bion went so far as to state that infancy and childhood constitute rehearsal
stages for adulthood, the thing-in-itself (Real, '0'), for man to find his
permanent partner.
Shakespeare, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, used the device of a
magical potion which, when poured into one's eyes, caused one to fall
instantly in love with the first person they saw when they opened their eyes.
Thus, he was keenly aware of the 'chemistry' of love. Freud, along parallel