ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores whether therapists need to work directly with the details of a couple’s sexual relationship, as these may represent enactments of otherwise inaccessible anxieties. She addresses how the therapist’s countertransference can be helpful in making sense of these body-based symptoms. The development of images of broken glass and broken damaged bodies made it possible for the containment of dread and allowed for the birth of images of creative intercourse symbolized by the pram. The creation of symbols transformed unknown and frightening aspects of their bodily experience into something that could be thought about and thereby contained. The therapist’s desire to bring the couple together, as felt in author countertransference, also seems to her a vital part of this linking process. The presentation of sexual difficulties in a couple is often located in a bodily dysfunction and the dysfunction can feel mysterious both to the couple and the therapist.
