Relational Psychoanalytic Perspective on Couples Psychotherapy

ABSTRACT

This places Relational Psychoanalysis within the pantheon of models of couples psychotherapy in psychoanalysis including those from Freudian, Object Relational, Self Psychology, and Intersubjective Systems Theory. Following a brief overview of key ideas pertinent to Relational Psychoanalysis, the article discusses the author’s Six-Step version of a relational psychoanalytic approach to couples psychotherapy.

Notes

¹ Gleick (1987, pp. 22–23) noted in his book, Chaos: Making A New Science, that meteorologists, who were among the first to make use of chaos theory, otherwise known as complexity theory, posited that, theoretically, the origins of a hurricane in the Caribbean may well have been started from the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Venezuela.

² On this point, Goldner (2014, p. 404) wrote: “Indeed, if you’ve been living and sleeping with your partner for two years (it should be no surprise that we only attached to those we touch), you are now bonded, wound around each other, nervous system to nervous system, and your psychic state is now joint property. You may not be happy, it may not be good, but despite ourselves, it is our human nature, to paraphrase Crosby, Stills and Nash, to ‘love the one where with.’”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philip A. Ringstrom

Philip A. Ringstrom, Ph.D., Psy.D., is Senior Training Analyst, Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Founding Member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Member of the International Council of Self Psychologists; Editorial Board Member of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, and Psychoanalytic Perspectives; and in private practice in Encino, California.