Interpretation Viewed through the Lens of Attachment Informed Couple Psychotherapy*

Historically, the mutative power of psychoanalysis has been attributed to interpreting transference. The site of transformational change has been located in the patient-analyst relationship; the medium for bringing it about has been language: psychoanalysis as the “talking cure”. There is much wrong with this formulation, not least for therapists whose “patient” is the adult couple—itself constituting a powerful site for past conflicts to find a home. Moreover, psychoanalysts of all persuasions accept that fundamental assumptions about relationships are formed at an unconscious level before experience can be symbolised through language.

Attachment theory has laid the foundations for theoretical and therapeutic developments that highlight the mutative potential of relationships in which both parties are involved in the mutual process of creating something new. This transformational capacity is not the preserve of any one therapeutic approach, but belongs in the realm of what have been described as the “non-specific” factors that have accounted for change identified in many psychotherapy outcome studies. This article will consider the “mood music” of psychotherapy, suggesting that interpretation can be viewed as an act of love, stemming from, as much as resulting in, change.