ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a clinical example of the impact on a couple’s relationship, particularly their sexual relationship, of unresolved traumatic early experiences that affected their sense of containment, both a sensory and a psychic level, resulting in shared primitive anxieties. It explores the impact of traumatic pre-Oedipal experiences on the adult sexual relationship. The chapter examines the intensely psychosomatic nature of the difficulties experienced by a couple who have deeply dissociated, traumatic internal object relationships, as they struggle to find an adequate way of connecting. It argues that pre-genital Oedipal conflicts may stem from the very earliest experiences of the skin, from what Ogden calls the Autistic-Contiguous stage of psychic development where experience is largely sensory, through touch. Couples who share the core anxieties may utilise narcissistic defences, attempting to merge with the partner, via dynamics of omnipotent control, literally using the partner as a ‘second skin’.
