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When the opportunity to sojourn into another therapist's work appears I find it both tantalizing and, at the same time, trepidatious. Tantalizing because the life of a
therapist can be a lonely one, so having access to the work of a fellow helper can be affirming and connecting. Trepidatious because each of us travelling the solo journey are reliant on our own interpretation of what it means to be a good enough therapist, the elements that make up a well structured session and what our memory retains of the theories we learnt so long ago or recently and want affirmation from a therapist of experience. Thus, reading the work of another brings into focus what they attend to and we may have forgotten or not be paying enough attention to. Additionally, as a systemic psychotherapist, my curiosity is provoked to read of the workings of a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, noting the familiar and the unfamiliar in the work and the theoretical approach. In all of these regards Susanna Abse does not disappoint. In her introduction, Abse positions herself as a psychoanalytic thinker writing ‘a series of psychoanalytic allegories’ (p. xiii). In both the psychoanalytic and systemic disciplines, the human need for connection and transformation (growth) are central and I looked forward to Abse's use of these to support the couples she works with.
Abse separates the book into three sections, each attending to common experiences that show up in relationships. In Part 1, ‘Fragile Bonds’, Abse brings us five couples, each with their own need for greater intimacy but a greater fear of stepping into it. What warms me to this book is that early on Abse reveals her own needs in the context of the client's presentations; while enduring the bickering of Victoria and Rupert, Abse notes ‘I wanted them, in short, to be different’ (p. 5). With Jack and Jill's dogged avoidance of Abse's prods to get them to the issue, she tells how at the end of the session she ‘made straight for my desk drawer