ABSTRACT
Working with couples can be draining or enlivening: Therapists are bombarded with a myriad of dynamics—projections, projective identifications, fluctuating transferences from each partner, fluctuating countertransference to each partner, secrets, resistances from each or both, manipulation by each or both, as well as exposure to a degree of rage and fighting. Countertransference reactions in couple therapy can be more powerful and are certainly more complex than in individual treatment. Therapists have to be aware of the responses evoked by each patient and by the couple as a whole, as they witness and try to understand the partners' often rageful, defensive, and confusing interactions. In some ways, analytic couple therapy, by its very nature, democratizes the psychoanalytic situation. As we look at hope and hopelessness in treating couples, we become aware of the reciprocal affect that the people in the room—including the therapist—continuously exert on each other.
