ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the particular concepts from psychoanalytic theory that have, been most useful in treating couples. A clinician applying classical theory to the treatment of intimate relationships would focus on intrapsychic drives and the unconscious reasons for partner choice, listening for evidence of the psychosexual development of each individual, their degree of success in resolving oedipal issues, their pattern of defensive operations, and any manifest compromise formations. Intersubjectivity, introduced by Stolorow and his colleagues in 1978, was defined as a field theory or systems theory in which psychological phenomena are understood not as being products of isolated intrapsychic function, but as being at the interface of reciprocally interacting individuals. "Emphasis on interaction alone minimizes the complex contribution of an individual's history and psychodynamics, while exclusive emphasis on individual psychology misses the way in which interpersonal interaction governs a couple's intimate life".
