ABSTRACT
The challenge is more formidable in working with malignant narcissism because cocaine addiction fuels omnipotent "madness" and it conflicts with a saner part of the self and reality. Character disordered couples with cocaine addiction frequently exhibit breakdown in attunement because of hypersensitivity to affects, emotional lability, and sensation-seeking behaviour. When working with the unconscious of regressed couples, premature clarity of understanding must be replaced by uncertainty until co-created meanings emerge. The therapist that can tolerate contradictory couple expressions increases patient awareness of splitting, leading to an increased consciousness of defensive strategies and their origins. The projective couple matrix combines the schizoid partner's obsessional traits needed to maintain stability while fearing dependency, and the borderline partner who fears abandonment, and requires dependency, and admires the partner's seeming self confidence. The couple rapidly descends into aggressive, hostile-dependent patterns of relating. The couple's extra-marital arrangement broke down just like the daughter-father-husband's business arrangement.
