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When asked to review a classic work of fiction that might also be used in teaching students of couple counselling, I thought immediately of Richard Yates's first novel, Revolutionary Road. It is enjoying its fiftieth birthday this year, having been published to great critical acclaim in 1961. Kurt Vonnegut described it as ‘The Great Gatsby of our time … One of the best books by a member of my generation.’ Tennessee Williams hailed it as a masterpiece. It is beautifully written, both poetic and compelling, but it is because of its minute and accurate description of a marriage under stress that it is of particular interest to couple counsellors and therapists, both experienced and in training.
The novel centres around April and Frank Wheeler, a young, middle-class couple who have moved to a prosperous Connecticut suburb in the mid 1950s. Frank is a Korean War veteran, while April, like most women at the time, stays at home to look after their two children. Before marriage and children, she dreamt of travel and becoming an actress, and he dreamt of a life very different from his father's daily commute to a dull job in New York. Although set and written over fifty years ago, the frustration of giving up dreams of individuation for the sake of the couple and family is a familiar theme of our work with couples today.
As theory seminar reader on the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationship's (TCCR) Postgraduate Diploma programme, I have considered how Revolutionary Road might best be used. The whole novel would serve well as background reading, while particular chapters could provide a focus for studying the set theoretical papers. Using literature to illustrate psychoanalytical concepts is not a new method, as Christopher Clulow, James Fisher, and David Hewison, among others, have demonstrated. Citing literary examples obviates the need to get clients' permission to write about their cases. Elphis Christopher has explored the ethical considerations of obtaining such permiss