ABSTRACT
Kernberg describes the more immature or paranoid-schizoid couples who are limited in their capacity to love each other fully. In broadening Klein's work to match today's clinical climate, Modern Kleinian Therapy makes use of Kleinian technique to work with couples facing severe relational crises. The support author's give the couple includes the inherent vow that will help them survive this painful contact and walk with them into the unknown. All relationships involve some element of psychic retreat and pathological organization, but analytic couples treatment seeks to minimize it in favor of more fulfilling and healthy ways of relating and coping. Ann and Bill came into couples treatment two years ago. In the more primitive and paranoid climate of pathological organizations which author's typically encounter in couples treatment, the absence of a good object is experienced as the presence of a bad object, and the recognition of whole objects with both good and bad qualities culminating in ambivalence is unbearable.
