Before, Between, and Beyond Interpretation: Attachment Perspectives on Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

ABSTRACT

This article considers the process of psychoanalytic couple therapy from an attachment perspective. A brief and selective history of the transference interpretation sets the scene for considering applications to couple psychoanalysis, where there are multiple transference sites, and some implications of attachment theory where the unconscious is viewed not only in dynamic terms, but also as nonconscious information processing systems. Attention is drawn to the potential for working with the nonverbal communication of affective states which, through affectively charged repetitive sequences over time, impacts on procedural knowledge. Implicit intersubjective interactions, often expressed through behavior, make up the temporal region described as being before interpretation, whose impact may well go beyond verbal interpretation in terms of its mutative effects. This distinction is also used to distinguish interpretations that understand present behavior as a repetition of the past (in this sense of going before) from those that focus on its function in trying to achieve an aspired to future (going beyond). In both cases, couple psychotherapists work in the space between intersubjectivities.

Acknowledgment

I acknowledge the helpful comments made by members of the International Psychotherapy Institute when this article was first presented, and particularly the resources and suggestions offered by Caroline Sehon. Responsibility for how these have been used rests entirely with me.

Notes

¹ Identifying features have been removed from this and other case vignettes in this article, which are based on composites of real clinical encounters with these dynamic themes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher Clulow

Christopher Clulow, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow of Tavistock Relationships, London, and a Fellow of the Social Research Unit, Dartington. He has written extensively about couple relationships and couple psychotherapy from a psychoanalytic perspective, incorporating attachment theory into his work. He is registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council, and practices in London and his home town of St Albans.