Object relations couple therapy.

Abstract

The authors describe Fairbairn's view of the personality as a system of parts of self and object in dynamic relation, formed in the context of dependent early relationships and replayed in the intensely intimate and physical relationship of marriage. Through Klein's concept of projective identification, a spouse finds lost parts of the self in the partner, where they may flourish and be reintegrated into the self or they may be held hostage. Marriage is an opportunity for reworking the dynamic relation of parts of the self as they are modified through mutual unconscious interaction with the spouse, but it may become a closed system that inhibits growth of the individual partners. Object relations couple therapy aims to breach the closed system of the unhappy marriage, and offers an enlarged space for understanding that encourages the spouses to provide a better holding environment for each other. Not directive, didactic or symptom-focused, object relations therapy values affect, silence, body language, fantasy, dreams, and transference phenomena as necessary for reaching the unconscious in order to achieve insight. The object relations therapist interprets defenses against anxieties that underlie repetitive patterns of unhelpful behavior, and works toward understanding. As the clinical vignettes show, therapists use countertransference to understand the couple's shared transference from inside their experience. The engine of therapeutic change in this model is the therapist's self. The process of therapy improves the couple's capacity for containing each other's projections instead of refusing to resonate with them or being overtaken by them to the detriment of the self. A cycle of regression and progression in the couple's ability for containment is found as therapy proceeds. The goal of therapy is to enable the projective and introjective identificatory system of the marriage to function with greater concern for the other and respect for the self.