ABSTRACT

This collection of contemporary clinically-oriented papers covers a range of theoretical approaches to the fundamentally important technical issue of interpretation. It offers thought-provoking, cross-cultural clinical perspectives about interpretation with illustrations from cutting edge clinical practice with couples and families.

Divided into three sections, the first part of the book examines interpretation within the broader field of psychoanalysis, and notes how it has been applied to couple and family psychoanalysis. Part II considers the current use of interpretation with couples, including how it informs assessment, while Part III focuses on its application with families and considers a broad range of key topics, including the nature of family, social and intergenerational links, the arrival of a newborn, same sex couples’ families, bereavement in a family, and families with adolescent children. Each chapter includes a lively discussion piece.

Interpretation in Couple and Family Psychoanalysis: Cross-Cultural Perspectives represents a major contribution to the field of couple and family psychoanalysis. It reflects the fruits of an unparalleled era of global collaboration
 and the resultant re-shaping of approaches to clinical practice with couples and families. Mental health professionals dealing with couples and families will find it to have immediate relevance to their clinical work, either in their institutional or private practice.

part I|29 pages

Introduction

part II|72 pages

Interpretation in couple psychoanalysis

part III|146 pages

Interpretation in family psychoanalysis

chapter 10|20 pages

Fighting the darkness

A family in mourning

chapter 11|18 pages

The mess monster

Family therapy in the context of the arrival of a newborn brother

chapter 12|20 pages

The mystery, the turbulence and the passion of infantile phantasy in the couple

Whose pain is it – a shared internal world of unmourned objects