ABSTRACT
This chapter considers anxiety and its relationship to the emotional growth of a couple or family. It shows that anxiety is central to understanding the internal psychological world of the couple and family. The chapter outlines a schema of developmental anxieties, one which psychotherapists all negotiate in the process of psychological growth. It discusses the value of supervision both for working at the depth required, and for containing the therapist’s anxiety at what those depths reveal. The chapter provides a developmental hierarchy of anxieties, one that looks at how anxieties inherent in growth and maturation impact on the internal object relations the child has developed. It focuses on one couple in particular whose early compromised experience led to narcissistic difficulties in their marriage. An early idealised narcissistic fusion led to sexual problems and was further exacerbated by the birth of their child.
