ABSTRACT
To illustrate the impact of culture on intimate relationships, we will describe brief couple therapy with a Chinese couple. This treatment was one element in our teaching for students, clinicians, and trainers in China, where we taught workshops in object relations couple and family therapy and a continuous course in psychoanalytic couple therapy at the invitation of Professor Shi Qijia at the Wuhan Hospital for Psychotherapy and Dr Fang Xin of Peking University in Beijing respectively. Our hosts arranged for serial translation of our concepts, slides, videos, and group discussions—and of therapeutic consultations with various couples, to be observed live or on video feed to an audience of seventy mental health students, clinicians, and trainers. We taught our Chinese participants the western view of relationships and unconscious dynamics. They taught us to understand couples’ verbal expressions, imagery, and culture.
