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Although Great Britain boasts approximately eight thousand psychotherapists registered with either the British Psychoanalytic Council or the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy—the two principal professional bodies for psychotherapists in this country—we have, at present, only thirty-five fully accredited marital psychotherapists, or, as we have recently become known, “couple psychoanalytic psychotherapists.” After much spirited debate, our tiny, intrepid band changed its name from the Society of Psychoanalytical Marital Psychotherapists (the official grouping of the graduates of the Tavistock Centre's training in marital psychotherapy) to the Society of Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists, in an effort to reflect the fact that many of the “marital” couples with whom we work nowadays may never have exchanged jewelry or paperwork, or may, in fact, be gay or lesbian. So, the term “marital psychotherapy” has become superseded by the moniker “couple psychotherapy,” at least in Great Britain. Our American colleagues, so I understand, still refer to themselves as “M.F. T's”—Marriage and Family Therapists.
As couple psychotherapists in Great Britain, we do important work, helping often deeply troubled couples through long-term psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, hoping thereby that they may recapture the joys that they had once experienced together. Why, then, do we have only thirty-five fully accredited clinical members of our professional organization, especially when we have a population of some 45,000,000 adults, most of whom live in a marital or cohabiting arrangement? Our training at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, part of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, demands a great deal of time and effort, like any intensive psychoanalytic