ABSTRACT
Psychodynamic couple therapy is an application of psychoanalytic theory. It draws on the psychotherapist's experience of dealing with relationships in individual, group, and family therapy. Couple therapy developed predominantly from psychoanalysis in Great Britain and from family systems theory in the United States. Transference and countertransference are as central to psychodynamic couple therapy as they are to individual analytic therapy. The couple in therapy has had some rehearsal for termination when ending each time-limited session and facing breaks in treatment due to illness, business commitments, or vacations. Object relations couple therapy enables psychodynamic therapists to join with couples at the level of resonating unconscious processes to provide emotional holding and containment, with which the couple identifies. Interactions of couples can be understood both in terms of the conscious needs of each partner and in terms of shared unconscious assumptions and working agreements.
