Urgency and Hope in Couple and Family Psychoanalysis

Elizabeth Palacios, MD, is a psychiatrist and a member of the New IPA Spanish Group GAEP. She serves as a Training Analyst at the Madrid Psychoanalytic Association and is a Child and Adolescent Psychoanalyst. Additionally, she is the Chair of the IPA Couple and Family Committee (COFAP). Dr. Palacios has authored and co-authored several books on couple, family, and child and adolescent psychoanalysis. She is also the Director of the Center for Vulnerable Adolescents (ASPADE) in Zaragoza, Spain.Silvia Resnizky is a psychologist and a Training Analyst at the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association (APdeBA). She is an IPA Specialist in Childhood and Adolescence and serves as the Co-Director for Latin America of the IPA COFAP Committee. A former member of the IPA Board and Executive Committee (ExCom), she has co-authored several books on family and couple psychoanalysis.

“The uncertainties afflicting global and family relationships has arguably never been greater than at present. The pressure to retreat to past certainties conflicts with the need to adapt to changed realities – for analysts and their patients. This book exemplifies how the best of psychoanalysis offers hope to families caught up in such temporal and spatial conflicts, providing a calm reflective space for those in the eye of the storm. Theoretically grounded, and well-illustrated clinically, it provides an exceptional navigational aid for those helping families whose future horizons have yet to appear.”Christopher Clulow PhD; Consultant Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, and Senior Fellow of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, London.“This is a must-read to help us encompass our disrupted times and states of being. International contributors provide a dazzling confrontation with the burning issues of our time – ruptured boundaries, states of occupation, changing gender identities, and broken links. They leaven the threat of despair by embracing uncertainty, living in the in-between, and learning from encounter with the Other, as they work toward transformation to rebuild a hopeful sense of self and society.”Jill Savege Scharff, MD, FABP, MRCPsych, Co-founder, International Psychotherapy Institute, Recipient, 2021 Sigourney Award. Co-author, The Interpersonal Unconscious“Urgency and Hope in Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, edited by Elizabeth Palacios and Silvia Resnizky, represents a profoundly important contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of couples and families facing the challenges of our contemporary landscape. Situated squarely in link theory, this volume examines the impact that such conditions as war, social instability, transformations in identity and sexuality, and changing couple and family configurations have on individual and interpersonal functioning and offers new and compelling ideas for working with modern couples and families. This is a book that belongs in every psychotherapist’s library.”James Poulton; Emeritus Faculty, International Psychotherapy Institute; author of Object Relations and Relationality in Couple Therapy: Exploring the Middle Ground“This important volume, written by esteemed international clinicians, offers a multi-dimensional perspective that focuses on the impact of social phenomena on couples and families. International contributors drawn from esteemed clinicians situate relationships in a broad context to discuss topics such as the impact of war on psychic and relational bonds; social responses to new family configurations, reproductive technology, and transexual identities; and link theory as a theoretical approach to understanding these issues. During these rapidly changing and turbulent times, this book is an essential and valuable resource for working with couples and families today.” Shelley Nathans, Ph.D. Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California“A stellar line-up of international contributors brings to a global readership the latest developments in psychoanalytic thinking about relationships. Tackling key issues shaping our contemporary lives, the authors combine a depth of focus with a breadth of vision – tracing the unconscious forces which shape us and which extend through many layers – from the couple to the family, to our wider communities and, indeed, our international relations. This important book is an example of hope – hope emergent from the compelling contributions of its authors, which show how the prism of a psychoanalytic lens enables us to think deeply about the most urgent and challenging issues of our time.”Andrew Balfour, PhD, Chief Executive, Tavistock Relationships, London.“The clinical and theoretical articles on urgency and hope in psychoanalytic couple and family therapy collected in this book excellently convey how diverse international psychoanalysis has become in our current world and society. The central theme running through this book is the fact that we as humans can only live together in community and that we must carefully protect this community. At the same time, we must deal with our dual human nature and our inherent aggressiveness and destructiveness towards our interpersonal links in couples, families and the international community – this book is so significant because it takes the dangers in all these areas seriously and at the same time conveys well-founded hope rather than despair.” Dr. Heribert Blass, IPA President

• Editors and contributorsSeries Editor ForewordSilvia FlechnerForewordHarriet Wolfe and Adriana PrenglerEditor’s PrefaceElizabeth Palacios & Silvia ResnizkyIntroduction to the Book Urgency and HopeYolanda Gampel by Virginia UngarSECTION I. Times of War and LinksIntroductionAngela B. MouraChapter 1. Between Fear and Hope, Between Despair and Rebirth. Following the Massacre of the 7th of October 2023Hanni Mann-ShalviChapter 2. Making Sense of the Senseless: Psychoanalytic Intervention for Wartime TraumaCaroline SehonChapter 3. Internal landscape and links in times of catastropheMónica CardenalSECTION 2. New Family ConfigurationsIntroductionSandra Hernández FonttiChapter 1. Suffering Links. The Challenge of Building the CommonLaura BorenszteinChapter 2. Lights of Hope Facing the Darkness of Emergencies: Therapeutic process of a family with assisted procreationAlicia Monserrat and Marta ArenyChapter 3. New Forms of Parenthood: What’s New About Them?Patricia AlkolombreSECTION 3. The Legacy of Isidoro Berenstein and Janine PugetIntroductionSilvia ResnizkyChapter 1. Janine and Isidoro, two giants of link analysisJulio MorenoChapter 2. Thinking about the Link from the Link perspective: The transmission of IsidoroSilvia ResnizkyChapter 3. Isidoro Berenstein And Janine Puget Legacy and the Logic of Hope LogicAna Rosa C. TrachtenbergSECTION 4. Transgender and LinksIntroductionNicolas EzvonasChapter 1. The 'Paternal' Function in Contemporary Families: Theoretical and clinical implicationsLeticia Glocer de FioriniChapter 2. The couple in transitionDamian McCannChapter 3. Discussion of Leticia Glocer and Damian McCann’s PaperSusana MuszkatSECTION 5. Clinical practice around the worldIntroductionElizabeth PalaciosChapter 1. First Clinical Case. The Transgenerational Transmission of Collective Traumas and Links: From the First World War to the Present: Melancholy and PerversionIntroduction to the First Clinical CaseMaria Cecilia FernadesClinical Case (I).Rosa JaitinFirst DiscussionElizabeth PalaciosResponse to QuestionsRosa JaitinSecond DiscussionLia Rachel CypelChapter 2. Second Clinical Case. Due to the Traumatic Death of a Young ChildIntroductionAngela PivaClinical Case (II)Anna M. Nicolò & Donatella LisciottoFirst DiscussionTimothy KeoghSecond DiscussionMaría do Carmo Cintra de Almeida PradoSECTION 6. Hope and HorizonsIntroductionDenise Lea MoratelliChapter 1. Loving, hating and finding creativity in the coupleMary MorganChapter 2. Hope in ActionJulie FriendChapter 3. Hope and PerspectivesCláudio Laks EizirikEpilogueFlavia Costa Strauch