ABSTRACT
Imogen felt the children were too young to weather a divorce, so she now took herself in hand, gave up complaining, and started studying. Within a few years she became a professional translator at conferences. A couple’s story in the consulting room will also have those effects. But the whole point is to understand both the events and the motives behind the manipulations in a new way. Sometimes, a cricket ball system hurriedly assembled by dedicated friends and relatives can keep the young family together long enough for the couple to mature and find each other as persons rather than co-conspirators. The more flexible the boundary, the more “heat” the family as a whole can stand. One partner holds the other inside the self, like a Russian folk doll with a smaller doll safely tucked inside. Jung called this “the container and the contained” relationship.
