ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the conceptualization offered in Britton's paper is equally useful in both theoretical thinking about, and psychoanalytic treatment of, couples. It reviews some of the central concepts set out in Britton's paper, and shows how they may be applied to offer further understanding of the dynamics in the intimate, adult couple relationship that, as a result, provides an arena for continued reworking of unresolved oedipal dilemmas. The chapter explores how engaging in a couple relationship offers the partners an opportunity to rework oedipal issues and potentially develop the capacity to be a couple, a capability fundamentally dependent on the reasonable achievement of depressive position capacities. Issues relating to dependence and independence, being included and excluded, sexuality, procreation, and the toleration of ageing and death are inevitably at the heart of all couple relationships.
