ABSTRACT

The use of the self is the hallmark of therapeutic work with couples and families that is based on a psychoanalytic understanding. This chapter focuses on what goes on in the mind of the therapist when working with couples and families and how the therapist with an awareness of his or her own internal experience can bring about change. It illustrates some of the ways in which the unconscious processes are represented in both couples or families and in the mind of the therapist. Formal history taking is common practice, and may provide important information, but may interrupt the flow of unconscious thoughts and associations. Dreams and phantasies can provide a different language for the expression of unconscious processes in the dynamics between couples or within families. Transference and counter-transference experiences are important ways for the psychoanalytically-trained psychotherapist to understand the unconscious currents in family functioning.