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In his treatment of married couples, Jürg Willi's clinical observation is that despite their presentations of irreconcilable differences, they manifest complementary behavioral phenomena derived from similar areas of unconscious conflict. His book is an attempt to elaborate this observation.
Willi describes three dynamic principles for healthy partner relationships. First, in accord with Minuchin, he argues that there must be relatively firm but flexible boundaries between members of a couple, defining each individual, and around the dyad, defining the marital pair. Second, there must be a relative balance of self-esteem in the marriage. Finally, there must be available to each partner a flexible use of what he calls "progressive" and "regressive" responses to dynamic conflicts. This last idea is the key to understanding his notion of "collusion."
In pathological relationships, according to Willi, unconscious conflicts can be externalized, acted out, and rigidly stabilized in a marriage at times when partners both have similar areas of vulnerability and when they develop complementary and unconsciously collusive ways of managing their shared conflicts. This complementarity is manifest when one partner regressively acts out the conflict and the other uses reaction formation ("progressive") or other forms of denial and "adult façade" formation. Willi suggests, "They see themselves as irreconcilable opposites, when in fact they complement each other and create a whole."
Willi describes four patterns of collusion, variations of which he sees in all marriages: narcissistic, oral, anal, and phallic. In the narcissistic pattern, the behavioral division is between one partner who manifests the reaction formation of grandiosity and devaluation (with underlying ruthlessness) and one who displays the regressive picture of inferiority and idealization (with underlying wishes to entrap). The oral division is between nurturing (critical) and being nurtured (insatiable and