ABSTRACT
The understanding of the couple relationship has been at the heart of Tavistock Relationships since its inception in 1948. The pioneering family caseworkers turned to psychoanalysis to help understand the conflicted and distressed couple relationships they were encountering. Psychoanalytic couple theory takes as its focus not only what each partner brings from the past to the present relationship, but the new and unpredicted ways in which their separate inner worlds impact on the other in the present. It was observed that couples brought to the relationship shared or similar ways of experiencing the world through unconscious phantasy. Unconscious phantasy, although inevitably having roots in past experience, also shapes the way the couple relates in the present. It could be seen how couples set up shared defences to manage shared unconscious phantasies, leading to a relationship in which, for example, strong feelings are avoided and the presenting problem is a lack of intimacy and sex.
