Couple Attachments

Molly Ludlam is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with couples, individuals, and parents in private practice and a Full Member of the British Society of Couple Psychotherapists and Counsellors, and Member of the International Council of Editors of Psychoanalytic Journals. She is author, editor and contributor to many books and journals. Viveka Nyberg is a Full Member of the SCPP and a Senior Member of the British Association of Psychotherapists. She is a Visiting Clinician/Lecturer at TCCR and works as a Couple Psychotherapist in the Adult Department, Tavistock Clinic, and as a Principal Psychotherapist in the City and East London Mental Health Trust. Her published papers include 'Shadows of the Parental Couple' (in Grier, 2005, Karnac Books) and 'The Fragmented Couple' (Kahr, Karnac Books, 2007).

'The present collection of original contributions to the Edinburgh Congress on "Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy" is a most welcome, refreshing approach to a field of growing importance in the application of psychodynamic principles to couples' conflicts. This volume presents a broad spectrum of contributions within the common frame of a psychodynamic approach, with particular emphasis on contemporary developments in attachment theory and in object relations theory. The various authors combine in different proportions and with different, innovative approaches these two major trends within contemporary dynamic treatments. Several papers illustrate very clearly the application of attachment theory, particularly in its focus on dysregulated affect communication, and on the vicious circles derived from dysregulated affects in one or both partners, as well as the specific therapeutic approaches geared to help a couple correct and resolve dysregulated affect communications. The mostly attachment theoretical approaches also integrate, with some frequency, cognitive behavioral measures that represent an original synthesis between psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral psychotherapeutic approaches. At the other extreme of this spectrum, the relatively "purer" psychoanalytic object relations approaches rely on contemporary Kleinian and Fairbairnian thinking, and focus on the unconscious repetition in a couple's relationship of past, pathogenic familiar relations, the unconscious repetition, in the here and now, of unresolved conflicts from the past in an unconscious effort to reactivate them with the longing for their resolution in the present. The psychodynamic approaches linking all these contributions also include, in many contributions, the consideration of the psychosocial and cultural frames within which a couple functions, and their consideration in the analysis and therapeutic approach to a couple's conflicts. The fact that a broad variety of approaches utilizing these theoretical formulations in different proportions, clearly presenting their conceptual backgrounds as well as highly practical applications of them makes this a theoretically stimulating and clinically valuable book that is highly recommended to all psychotherapists working in this area.'- Otto F. Kernberg, M.D. 'Students and practitioners alike will find enormous enrichment and learning from this international collection of papers. Integrating object relations and attachment perspectives, this volume represents contemporary thinking and practice in psychodynamic couple therapy.The contributing authors are all authorities in their field and their perspectives, though emanating from different continents, have a pleasing coherence which makes this an engaging and enjoyable read.' - Susanna Abse, Director, The Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, London'The work as a whole provides some varied theories on couples and the issues they face, illustrated with relevant and interesting examples of case studies.'- Lyla Vander, Resources

• ContentsSection One: The couple in the mind: shaping, perceiving and presenting the couple identitySection Two: The couple in the family: developmental and contextual perspectivesSection Three: Couples in rivalry: power imbalance in couple relationshipsSection Four: The power of theory and research: the psychotherapist's aid to thinking about the couple