What makes for mature relating, such as in the ‘capacity for intimacy’ which allows for the partners’ separateness but nonetheless enables deep closeness? How can this capacity be meaningfully conceptualised? How can appearances of intimacy be unravelled as being no more than a mirage covering up two people imprisoned in a ‘gridlock’ of intense denial of difference and separateness? What are the role and use of projective identification in choice of partner and in the couple's relationship?

These are some core questions which are addressed in this interesting book which includes, for the most part, revised versions of the contributors’ papers presented in a Tavistock Marital Studies Institute conference held in November 1994, titled ‘Projective Identification and the couple: Intrusion? Communication?’

The book, with a foreword by Ron Britton and an introduction by the two editors, is divided into two parts: Part I, of five chapters; Part II, a single chapter. In Chapter 1