Psychoanalytic work with couples has amplified the complex nature of Jung’s (1925/1945) proposal that there is an unconscious psychological factor in an individual’s choice of partner. Typically, couples seeking therapy are distressed about the overwhelming nature of difficulties that they cannot seem to overcome or resolve. A contemporary Jungian approach proposes that the origin of these difficulties is frequently to be found in unresolved complexes. These can be thought of as unprocessed highly anxiety-provoking proto-experiences, many of which create interlocking dynamics which then become shared between the partners. By understanding their unconscious processes, the couple are helped to understand their own and their partner’s point of view, as well as the couple relationship that they are co-creating. Understood in this way, the couple relationship offers opportunities for individuation for both partners as well as for the couple relationship as a separate co-created entity with its own life and energy.
Deb Power: The Beginning: Assessing couples in couple therapy. Deb will focus on the aim and purpose of assessment, its role in helping us form preliminary thoughts in our understanding of the couple and in guiding the therapy work. As it is the co-created couple relationship that is actually the patient in couple therapy, it is the role of therapist to seek to understand this relationship. Using clinical examples, Deb will consider
concepts such as Jung’s container/contained (1925), the defensive or developmental relationship and Jung’s
notion of the Psychological Relationship.
Sue Oliver: Working with Primitive States in Couple Therapy. Sue will guide us through her work with a
couple who both suffered early relational trauma. She will explore the couple’s anxieties, individual and
shared, their defences against that anxiety, and their complex relationship to each other and to the therapist
in the room, using the transference and countertransference. She will talk about primitive states, the nature
of the couple container and the role of containment of these states. She will explore the couple’s shared
unconscious fantasy and their struggle to come into contact with and hold, a shared couple state of mind.
Julia Meyerowitz-Katz: “For those who have the symbol, the passage is easy” (Jung, 1956/67).
One of the factors which causes distress between couples is their unconscious choice of a partner who shares
similar developmental lacks and losses which result in impaired capacities for symbolic thought. Drawing on
clinical material, Julia will present her approach to supporting the development of symbolisation in both
partners as part of her primary analytic task with couples who are faced with these difficulties.