ABSTRACT

The couple, Greg and Lottie, are presented in the context of psychoanalytic couple psychotherapy. The clinical material highlights the suffering of the entire family: the children, the couple, and the grandparents. Considering the distress in the family as a whole, family therapy would also have been an option. Perhaps, Greg’s and Lottie’s request for couple therapy is indicative both of their hopelessness that they would be able to work things through as a family, but also of their hope and desire to “become” a couple in their own right.