Berg, J. (2012). ‘A bad moment with the light’. No-sex couples: the role of autistic-contiguous anxieties.  Couple and Family Psychoanalysis,  2 (1):  33-48.Siegel, J. (2012). Denial, dissociation, and emotional memories in couples treatment.  Couple and Family Psychoanalysis,  2 (1):  49-64.

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to discuss two fine papers printed in the previous issue of this Journal. Each does considerable service in bringing important analytic concepts to bear on our treatment of couples. I see my own comments also as complementary to those of Valerie Sinason, which deal with aspects I will not take up. I will discuss the two papers separately, as they present quite different conceptual formulations.

I appreciated Judith Siegel's paper on the concept of denial in couple therapy, with its important review of developmental and neuroscience literatures. The problem I have, as may many readers of this journal who draw more extensively from British writers, is that Siegel has taken a concept from an American object relations literature, to illustrate phenomena that, for me, are more usefully considered from the standpoint of British object relations. The difference between those whose orientation is from American object relations, like Siegel, and those whose orientation is that of British object relations, arises I believe, in being founded less on