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ABSTRACT
This paper elaborates the post-Kleinian understanding of the Oedipal Complex. It considers the idea of the development of ‘triangular space’ as an outcome of the Oedipal situation and concurs with Nathans (this issue) that this development can take place regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or couple and family configuration. Psychic development can be conceptualized in linear terms but in reality it involves much returning to earlier stages or reworking them from later positions. This reworking is seen in the interplay between triangulation, triadic, as well as dyadic relating, in all three of Nathans’s clinical examples. Creative couple relating is seen as one manifestation of the development of triangular space and it is suggested that being able to function creatively in couple and family relationships can be challenging and depends on a capacity for negative capability, managing difference and otherness, and managing hate in the context of love.
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Notes on contributors
Mary Morgan
Mary Morgan, M.Sc., is a Psychoanalyst and Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, Senior Fellow of Tavistock Relationships and Honorary Member of the Polish Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She is European member of the IPA Committee in Couple and Family Psychoanalysis. Until recently she was the Reader in Couple Psychoanalysis and Head of the MA in Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at Tavistock Relationships, London. She has written extensively in field of couple psychoanalysis and teaches and supervises internationally. Her book: A Couple State of Mind: Psychoanalysis of Couples – the Tavistock Relationships Model was published recently by Routledge.