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This is the second volume of clinical and theoretical articles on psychoanalytic couple psychotherapy edited by Shelley Nathans. As in the first volume, each chapter is followed by a commentary section which expands and comments on the ideas in the original article.
Unlike the first volume, which emphasised the contemporary Kleinian and object relations approach developed at Tavistock Relationships, this collection includes other theoretical models of working psychoanalytically with couples. Winnicottian theory, link theory, attachment theory, contemporary relational theory, self psychology are all represented here, as are many of the familiar names from the Tavistock Relationships model: Mary Morgan, Molly Ludlam, Avi Shmueli.
Janet Mattinson in Mate and Stalemate: Working with Marital Problems in a Social Services Department (Mattinson & Sinclair, 1979) likens couples under stress to infants under stress—shouting, hitting, crying, hiding, sulking. Inevitably, the chapters in this volume, whether centred around creativity, link theory, sexuality, or ego-psychology, speak to the emotions engendered when anxieties around safety and self-preservation are aroused in a relationship. The final chapter, which looks at co-parent therapy with high-conflict separating and divorcing couples, demonstrates how such anxieties can continue to wield power even after the formal ending of the relationship.