ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a series of explorations of the brief encounters that psychotherapists may find themselves having with couples. Some of these meetings may occur within the structure of time-limited couple therapy; however, many of them take place in areas that differ from psychotherapeutic contexts more or less widely. The passage of time is a basic element in a psychoanalysis. The book includes a retrospective discussion weighing up the pros and cons of the brief intervention. It provides a very clear example of how a psychoanalytic understanding can be enormously helpful even in a brief series of meetings that do not have as their primary aim a psychotherapeutic outcome. Many of the couples described in the case examples have generously given their consent to their therapies being made use of for the purposes of research, teaching, and professional publications.
