More About Couples on the Couch: Approaching Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy from an Expanded Perspective

290 Pages·2022·2.341 MB·English

by  Shelley Nathans

Shelley Nathans’ new volume, More About Couples on the Couch, is a
wonderful collection of clinical and theoretical articles. International
contributions are drawn from leading members of Tavistock Relation-
ships in London, the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Couple Psychother-
apy Group in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with other leading
therapists who illuminate areas of couple relationships that have been
largely out of the spotlight: creativity and imagination, love as a crea-
tive illusion, no-sex couples, and same-sex couples, along with a vari-
ety of psychoanalytic theoretical contributions. This volume offers a
treasure trove the well-read couple therapist will not want to miss.
David Scharff,
co-founder and former director,
International Psychotherapy Institute and former chair,
the International Psychoanalytic Association’s Committee
on Couple and Family Psychoanalysis
In this second volume of Couples on the Couch, the seminal book on
psychoanalytic couple psychotherapy, we see the merit and value of
expansions in theory that allow new ideas and therapeutic projects to
emerge. Most importantly, how deeply resonant these innovations are for
couples where issues of culture, race, identity, and sexuality are central.
This excellent edited volume of papers by international scholars will help
therapists understand and work with different kinds of relational config-
urations and the complex process of undoing, divorcing, or repairing the
damages and strains in contemporary relationships.
Adrienne Harris,
New York University Postdoctoral Program in
Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
In this second collection of papers under the title of Couples on the
Couch, Shelley Nathans has brought together papers from a variety of
theoretical orientations, complementing her first collection (co-edited
with Milton Schaefer), which took a primarily contemporary Kleinian
object relations approach, developed at Tavistock Relationships in
London, in its theoretical understanding of human growth and
development.
In this collection, Nathans includes an impressive array of papers
using the writings of Winnicott, Bollas, Ogden, Fairbairn and Kohut,
and the theoretical orientations offered by field, mentalisation, relational
and link theories, and by Self Psychology. Each paper is followed by a
discussion, which is very often as substantial as the paper to which it is
responding, and together they offer complementary, supplementary, and
sometimes alternative emphases on in-depth psychoanalytic work with
couples.
Though the Tavistock Relationships model has roots in Jungian
(Alison Lyons, Janet Mattinson) and Independent tradition (Enid Balint,
Michael Balint) thinking, its subsequent development leaned heavily on
the Kleinian and post-Kleinian object relations understanding of the
processes of splitting, projective identification, narcissism, and contain-
ment as being fundamental to an in-depth exploration of the psychic
structure of intimate couple relating. These remain as cornerstones, but
the papers in this collection demonstrate how further theoretical con-
structs substantially add to and develop this understanding.
Using many clinical vignettes all the papers demonstrate how the ori-
entation which they discuss is applied to the clinical work with couples
in the consulting room.
What this volume demonstrates, as did the first, is the efficacy of psy-
choanalytic understanding and treatment in the therapeutic work with
intimate couple relationships, and not just with individuals which is
where these theories were first developed. More than that, again, as with
the first volume, these papers implicitly demonstrate how an understand-
ing of the intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics of intimate couple
interaction informs and strengthens our theories about and clinical prac-
tice with individuals.
Stanley Ruszczynski,
psychoanalyst, BPA (British Psychoanalytic Association),
IPA, and psychoanalytic couple psychotherapist
More About Couples on the Couch
Following the critically acclaimed Couples on the Couch: Psychoanalytic
couple psychotherapy and the Tavistock model, this volume offers fur-
ther compelling ideas about couple psychotherapy from a psychoan-
alytic perspective.
The book well represents the foundational basis of the Tavistock
Model and draws deeply from the work of Freud, Klein, Bion, Meltzer,
and the contemporary Kleinians, while expanding the theoretical
model by featuring ideas about couple relationships written from a
variety of psychoanalytic frameworks. These additional frameworks
include Winnicottian Theory, Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory,
Link Theory, Self Psychology, Attachment Theory, Mentalization
Theory, and Contemporary Relational Theory. This rich array of the-
oretical models, presented with exemplifying clinical material, results
in a diverse assembly of papers that offer the reader an in-depth and
complex view of a psychoanalytic approach to understanding and
working with the dynamics of couple relationships.
With clear clinical guidance, this book will be invaluable for all psy-
choanalysts and psychotherapists working with couples.
Shelley Nathans is on the faculties of the Psychoanalytic Couple
Psychotherapy Group and The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern
California and is director/producer of the film Robert Wallerstein:
65 Years at the Center of Psychoanalysis. Her publications include,
“Oedipus for Everyone: Revitalizing the Model for LBGTQ Couples
and Single Parent Families” (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2021).
She is co-editor (with Milton Schaefer) of Couples on the Couch:
Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy and the Tavistock Model
(Routledge, 2017). She is in private practice in San Francisco and
Oakland, California.
Relational Perspectives Book Series
Adrienne Harris,
Steven Kuchuck & Eyal Rozmarin
Series Editors
Stephen Mitchell
Founding Editor
Lewis Aron
Editor Emeritus
The Relational Perspectives Book Series (RPBS) publishes books that grow out of or
contribute to the relational tradition in contemporary psychoanalysis. The term relational
psychoanalysis was first used by Greenberg and Mitchell1 to bridge the traditions of inter-
personal relations, as developed within interpersonal psychoanalysis and object relations,
as developed within contemporary British theory. But, under the seminal work of the
late Stephen A. Mitchell, the term relational psychoanalysis grew and began to accrue to
itself many other influences and developments. Various tributaries—interpersonal psycho-
analysis, object relations theory, Self Psychology, empirical infancy research, feminism,
queer theory, sociocultural studies, and elements of contemporary Freudian and Kleinian
thought—flow into this tradition, which understands relational configurations between self
and others, both real and fantasied, as the primary subject of psychoanalytic investigation.
We refer to the relational tradition, rather than to a relational school, to highlight that we
are identifying a trend, a tendency within contemporary psychoanalysis, not a more formally
organised or coherent school or system of beliefs. Our use of the term relational signifies a
dimension of theory and practice that has become salient across the wide spectrum of con-
temporary psychoanalysis. Now under the editorial supervision of Adrienne Harris, Steven
Kuchuck, and Eyal Rozmarin, the Relational Perspectives Book Series originated in 1990
under the editorial eye of the late Stephen A. Mitchell. Mitchell was the most prolific and
influential of the originators of the relational tradition. Committed to dialogue among psy-
choanalysts, he abhorred the authoritarianism that dictated adherence to a rigid set of beliefs
or technical restrictions. He championed open discussion, comparative and integrative
approaches, and promoted new voices across the generations. Mitchell was later joined by the
late Lewis Aron, also a visionary and influential writer, teacher, and leading thinker in rela-
tional psychoanalysis.
Included in the Relational Perspectives Book Series are authors and works that come
from within the relational tradition, those that extend and develop that tradition, and
works that critique relational approaches or compare and contrast them with alternative
points of view. The series includes our most distinguished senior psychoanalysts, along
with younger contributors who bring fresh vision. Our aim is to enable a deepening of
relational thinking while reaching across disciplinary and social boundaries in order to
foster an inclusive and international literature.
A full list of titles in this series is available at https://www.routledge.com/Relational-
Perspectives-Book-Series/book-series/LEARPBS.
Note
1 Greenberg, J. & Mitchell, S. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic theory. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
More About Couples on the
Couch
Approaching Psychoanalytic Couple
Psychotherapy from an Expanded
Perspective
Edited by Shelley Nathans
Cover image: Janoon028; iStock Photo, Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa
business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Shelley Nathans; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Shelley Nathans to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechani-
cal, 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.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-20744-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-20745-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-26502-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003265023
Typeset in Times New Roman
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
For my loving family, Sam Gerson, Mara Nathans Gerson, and
Nina Nathans Gerson

Contents
Preface xii
Acknowledgements xviii
Credits list xx
List of contributors xxii
1 Re-visioning creativity in couple psychoanalysis: the
importance of Winnicott and Bollas in clinical practice 1
DAVID HEWISON
2 Discussion of “Re-visioning creativity in couple
psychoanalysis”: the importance of Winnicott and Bollas
in clinical practice 20
SHAWNEE CUZZILLO
3 Love as creative illusion and its place in psychoanalytic couple
psychotherapy 33
JULIE FRIEND
4 Discussion of “Love as creative illusion and its place in
psychoanalytic couple psychotherapy” 47
RACHAEL PELTZ
5 Infidelity as manic defence 57
SHELLEY NATHANS
6 Discussion of “Infidelity as manic defence” 75
MARY MORGAN
7 Viewing the absence of sex from couple relationships through
the “core complex” lens 84
AMITA SEHGAL