ABSTRACT
In Chapter 12, “Brief interventions with parental couples – I”, and 13, “Brief interventions with parental couples – II”, the author enters the field of couple therapies. His affiliation at a Child Health Centre has made him aware that though a psychoanalyst is trained in individual work, he can transfer his/her experiences into couple work. The conditions for doing this, and the advantages and pitfalls, are thoroughly discussed in Chapter 12. He recommends a psychoanalytic frame to understand what goes on in and between the spouses. On the other hand, he recommends a flexible setting where he switches between mother–infant and couple work. He also advocates a technique that borrows from Freud’s belligerent metaphors of psychoanalytic work; not in order to be blunt or rude, but to present the spouses with the fact that they are in dire straits, and that the baby is rushing through development that might be negatively affected as long as their hassles continue.
