ABSTRACT
Psychodynamic couple psychotherapy is based upon the fundamental concept that we all have an unconscious which influences what we do, feel, perceive and think in relation to ourselves, and our intimate relationships with others. Andrew Balfour and M. Morgan’s excellent summary of the developments in therapy with couples from a psychodynamic perspective shows how fruitful this area of clinical intervention is. They address the nature of psychodynamic couple therapy and focuses on two principal ways in which it helps couples. The first is that the couple are seen together, so that their relationship is lived out in the sessions with the therapist and not simply described, as it would be were both partners in individual therapy. The second is that the way in which therapists attune themselves to what happens in the therapy and to the stories that are brought allows the idea of ‘enactments’ to bring a helpful perspective to what happens between all actors in the therapy.
