WBCPS 2022 Quarterly Scientific Meeting #1:
How do we as psychoanalytic couple psychotherapists hold a place for the creative, aesthetic, and non-realistic qualities of experience as we also help couples develop capacities for mature, differentiated object relating? What are the technical implications that these considerations suggest? Building upon foundational Kleinian concepts regarding psychoanalytic work with couples that have been developed by Tavistock Relationships, such as Morgan’s ‘couple state of mind’, Britton’s concept of the “third” as it applies to couples, and the central role of projective identification in structuring couple relationships, we will also consider the importance of Winnicott’s conception of transitional experience –the intermediate area between internal and external reality, and a necessary and vitalizing arena throughout life —in couple relationships. How can we consider the relationship between containment, transitional experience, and creativity, and how these ideas might add an element to Morgan’s ‘creative couple’ concept?
Photo Credit: Severine Pasternak, 2015
Love, such a central element in a Western view of couple life, is one example of emotionally intense experience in couples that has tended to be ‘rationalized’ in the psychoanalytic tradition. While this reflects the important weighting of reason and psychic maturity in relating, without a broader view individual and couple vitality can be compromised. Enlisting the thinking of Winnicott, Bion, and more current Independent School thinkers such as Goldman, Ogden, and Peltz, technical implications such as the importance of flexibility in emphasis between prioritizing interpretation of projective processes and in non-verbal avenues of containment and contact making will be explored through clinical material as a way of expanding our view of couple relating and of how we can help the couples who come to us.
Julie Friend LCSW, BCD is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist based in Berkeley, California, working with individuals, couples and offering consultation. She is a founding member, Board member and faculty of the Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Group, and has served as Director of its Intensive Study Program since 2010. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, and has taught, supervised and offered presentations on psychoanalytic couple psychotherapy at various institutions locally, nationally and internationally. Her publications include, “Love as Creative Illusion and its Place in Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy” (Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, 2013), and “Creative Illusion in couples: thoughts about the value of transitional experience for couple relationships” (Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, 2021). She has a particular interest in Middle School thinking.
Cheryl Jacobson, MSW, FIPA, a bilingual adult psychoanalyst and couple therapist and member of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, Quebec English branch will present clinical material.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of this seminar participants will be able to:
- Participants will describe the importance of Britton’s concept of the Third as an essential component of a couple state of mind and its importance in couple functioning.
- Participants will compare Kleinian and Winnicottian perspectives on creativity and the technical implications of these differences.
- Participants will contrast the utility of interpretation and non-interpretive interventions with couples.
Registration is closed.
Please email info@wbcps.org for late registrations.
