ABSTRACT
Central to psychoanalytic psychotherapy with couples—as with individual patients—is the view that human behaviour is directed and governed by unconscious as well as conscious motivation. In couple psychotherapy, the focus of clinical interest is the interaction between the two people who make up a relationship. Marital interaction refers to the constant and necessary tension inherent in any human relationship—that is, the tension between, on the one hand, the autonomy and individuality of each partner, and, on the other hand, the partnership they aspire to. A theory of object relations, as a model for understanding human relationships and the process of psychological growth and development, was substantially delineated by Melanie Klein, who paid particular attention to the internal and intra-psychic aspects of object relations. The concepts of projective and introjective identification and container/contained add further depth to an understanding of object relating.
