ABSTRACT
In developing his argument, Stanley Ruszczynski has given us a very thorough orientation to the psychological functioning of disturbed couples. This chapter outlines some ideas that Ruszczynski presents and elaborates on them through the lens of other papers he has written, paying attention to the problem of difference in couples. Ruszczynski's writing - "Couples on the Couch: Working Psychoanalytically with Couple Relationships" - points towards a recognition of what he calls the archaic remnants of mind, including intergenerational transmissions and intrapsychic drama. In his writing, Ruszczynski very interestingly observes that the strongest bond between a couple - for better and for worse - may be thought to be the harmony of their unconscious images and patterns of relating. People in couples have chosen each other for their otherness, and yet, without realizing it or meaning to, they collapse into narcissistic states where the partner's otherness, as Ruszczynski has shown, is, at minimum, protested and, more insidiously, intruded into or controlled.
