ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the context of the theoretical assumptions behind work as couple psychoanalytic psychotherapists. It provides a brief psychoanalytic understanding of how to perceive a couple's attraction to one another and what it is that underpins their choice of one another. The chapter also provides an overview of the particular psychoanalytic approach on which couple psychotherapists draw. It explores the experience of therapists and couple when the conjoint framework risks breaking down. This may be because the couple have been separated, expediently or intentionally, either from each other or from one of the therapists. The chapter presents clinical examples and discussion to illustrate the cat's cradle of some of the differing constellations of single and conjoint sessions. The goal of all couple psychoanalytic psychotherapists, be they proponents of joint or single work, is to increase the potential or actual psychic space between the couple, or in other words, to enlarge the couple container.
