SUMMARY A history of emotional and physical abuse, either in childhood or as part of a military or paramilitary experience, can profoundly affect a man's desire and capacity for intimacy and negotiation in long term relationships. Common consequences of abuse, such as observational learning of abusive behavior, identification with the aggressor, or fear of acting like the aggressor, are described in terms of their potential impact on couples. Examples are drawn from men with histories of abuse in childhood or in the military.
SUMMARY This article is an edited transcript of several experienced psychotherapists participating in an open dialogue on their personal experiences and thoughts regarding the use of touch in psychotherapy. They discuss the decision-making process in whether to apply or withhold touch, which includes several contextual variables such as timing, self-awareness of the therapist, countertransference, and the congruency between the appropriateness of the request for touch by the patient during the session and his or her own historical background. The usefulness of touch in psychotherapy is addressed.
SUMMARY This paper addresses some of the issues associated with a ghost triangle that threatened intimate bonding between a couple. A widower's unresolved mourning had led to an impasse in the relationship. Because only one partner sought therapy, intervention was limited to assessing options for detriangulation as requisite to the viability of the relationship, followed by individual and group support to develop relationship closure. Additional treatment goals included creating self-awareness about past and present problematic relationship patterns and strengthening self-care and mutual support.
SUMMARY The purpose of this study was to assess whether facilitated imagery is a successful technique for improving both marital satisfaction and individual psychological functioning. Twenty marital couples were randomly assigned to two experimental groups: Both received three sessions of structured marital enrichment and one also received three facilitated imagery sessions. Posttests were given at one month and four months following treatment. Subjects exposed to facilitated imagery showed significantly greater improvement on some scales of marital satisfaction and individual psychological functioning, and these improvements persisted at the four-month posttest. In posttest interviews, subjects reported the primary benefit was insight into themselves and their spouses. A series of 2x(3) repeated measure analyses of variance were used to detect changes for husbands and wives. Subjects exposed to facilitated imagery reported significantly greater improvement than enrichment-only subjects on some scales of marital satisfaction and individual psychological functioning. In addition, improvements persisted at the four-month posttest for the enrichment-plus-imagery subjects, but declined for the enrichment-only subjects. In interviews, the majority of imagery subjects reported that the process had been helpful to them both personally and relationally. Subjectively they reported gaining insight into themselves or their spouse as the primary benefit obtained from the imagery work.
SUMMARY In this article, the authors are questioning the commonly held belief that if two people are a “couple,” whether it be heterosexual or homosexual, they will eventually want to live together, be married and have children. In light of the increasing divorce rate and the narrowly defined options for relationship, the authors are proposing an alternative form of relationship, one in which each member of the couple chooses to retain their own separate living quarters while still being in a committed, monogamous and loving relationship. They refer to couples having this lifestyle as Dual Dwelling Duos or DDDs.
SUMMARY Addictions destroy both individuals and in particular their intimate relationships. Couples remain together for many reasons and when one partner has an addiction, the spouse has the fantasy that when the addiction is addressed the couple relationship will return to ‘normal.’ This article focuses on couple issues that have not been addressed in addiction treatment facilities and examines the role of the couple therapist versus the addiction counselor. Techniques and clinical interventions with this population are discussed and illustrated by case examples.
(2001). Models of Perceiving the World. Journal of Couples Therapy: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1-8.
SUMMARY A theory to explain the phenomena of love is suggested. The construct of love is dissected into physiological and psychodynamic components. Love is explained first via its adaptive function, then by its physiological arousal which is interpreted as either anxiety or excitement, which is activated via goodness-of-fit of each individual's internal love model. The leap to love is contingent on the complex constellation of the above-mentioned idiosyncratic components finding synthesis within individuals and between mates. Intimacy can be nurtured, but love, similar to humans and life itself, appears to be greater than the sum of its parts.
SUMMARY Featured are excerpts from several edited, transcribed lectures, from 1972-1987, by Virginia Satir on the relationship between body, mind, and soul. The excerpts are woven together with comments, explications, and clarification by the author.
SUMMARY Brief commentary on Virginia Satir's use of centering processes in bringing trainees into awareness of their own uniqueness, facilitating authentic therapeutic contact.
SUMMARY This article suggests that male partners of female sexual-abuse survivors may become vicariously traumatized in long term relationships with childhood abuse survivors. Drawing parallels to the symptomology of PTSD and the process of transmission, this article theorizes that highly conflictual home environments may be sufficient to cause distressing psychological and behavioral changes in family members. In these relationships, male partners suffer decrements in self-esteem, power, isolation, and sexual adequacy similar to other sufferers of PTSD. No empirical information is presented, but implications for counseling “dual trauma” couples is included.
SUMMARY Core energetics is a method of psychotherapy that seeks the integration of all aspects of humanity: the emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual. Based on a deep understanding of the ways in which energy and consciousness work together, the therapy, developed by John C. Pierrakos, MD, invites couples to experience their inner truth and to identify their universal life goals and core feelings. Core energetics emphasizes wholeness and unification without loss of individuation for the couple. This article describes core energetics as it is used in couples work; the theory, therapeutic stance, methods of diagnosis, and energetic techniques are discussed, as well as the focus on sexuality and Spirituality.
SUMMARY Examined is the developmental process of how intimacy plays a role in the relationship shared by addictive couples beyond their psychopathology. Addressed are substance and process addictions and the clinical dimensions that must be recognized in couples therapy. The dynamics and the process between the dyad are discussed as is the growth producing process toward healthy partnering among addicted couples. Treatment interventions including behavioral couples' therapy issues and import for further clinical practice are discussed.
SUMMARY The present paper presents, and illustrates with clinical material, a self-psychological approach to the use of dreams in a couples session. The approach suggested stresses a playful, metaphorical, form of communication. Freud (1914, p. 154) used the term spielraum, orplayspace, as a metaphor for the analytic atmosphere that allows the unfolding of a transferential process. Play, in the sense of developing a spirit of freedom, curiosity, and exploration, is necessary to the “growth of a healthy self.” It is very similar to the serious play that Winnicott (1953) described as occurring in an “intermediate area of experience.” This sense of playspace, and the creation of safety for it, underlies the approach of the present paper. A self-psychological approach to dreams can lend itself extremely well to working in a couples setting. Dreams provide an excellent opportunity for the development of a playful and metaphorical communication both between therapist and patient and between the two partners in the couple. This can deepen the couple's relationship as well as the curative process in each patient.
SUMMARY Becoming a couple means that two bodies come together to form a bond. In forming this bond, the partners' bodies use innate or learned patterns-how to be aroused, how to be tender or kind, how to reach out. These body postures can grow and mature over the lifetime of the relationship, or not. Couples seek professional help when they cannot end the shapes of bonding that no longer serve them and organize the next shapes of adult relating. This article presents the formative model of couples therapy, a somatically based experiential approach that emphasizes how partners use themselves bodily in their relationship and how they can reorganize their patterns bodily to grow both themselves and their relationship. A case example is given.
SUMMARY In ages past, spiritual seekers left their close relationships for the seclusion of a monastery or a solitary journey, facing their dragons essentially alone. Today, however, many of us face the dragons within us as we undertake the tasks of differentiation and individuation. Thus, our relationships, if we allow them, can become the loci of our deepest self-exploration, leading to deepening intimacy with our partners.
SUMMARY This article focuses on the treatment of couples with a collective personal history of multiple traumatic experiences, and central related concepts. Referred to as the intertrauma couples therapy (InTCT) model, this article outlines an approach to treating trauma victim couples in which each partner has suffered one or more traumatic experiences (i.e., war, rape, criminal assault, incest, community violence, etc.). InTCT is a structured five-phase model of care, derived from a long trauma treatment tradition, and the author's clinical experience in the treatment of multitrauma persons for over 20 years. This comprehensive, integrative approach to treatment is designed to resolve chronic interpersonal hostility, isolation in marriage, fears of intimacy and engulfment, and the persistent revivifications of partners' traumatic memories as a painful product of daily relational encounters. Unfortunately, these encounters represent trauma structures interacting with trauma structures, with no end or relief to the mutual pain-generating interactional patterns. The phases of the treatment takes the couple from disorganization and intense emotional reactivity to stabilization through integration to an end phase with a post-integration life skills building program for lasting results. Also presented are issues such as attachment, specific trauma responses to include interactive concepts of trauma bonding and systems theory in the context of trauma and dissociation. The article also presents a multitrauma couple case study, and discusses the critical role of therapist's functions.
SUMMARY Techniques taken from Method acting may be useful therapeutic tools and may lend themselves to adoption by Gestalt therapists. Similarities between the goals and procedures of Method acting and Gestalt therapy are described in some detail. The importance and effectiveness of enacted fantasy are discussed, and techniques of Method acting are described in terms of their relation to Gestalt theory. The importance and application of these techniques to Gestalt therapy with couples are discussed.
SUMMARY This article explores the Theory of Grounding as an important component of Couples Therapy. Therapeutic techniques which physically ground partners in their bodies are discussed and contraindications highlighted. In order to hear one another during times of increased conflict and intense emotionality, partners are taught skills which they practice for use during stressful times. Therapists can also employ grounding techniques, particularly with couples who trigger their reactivity. The underpinning of grounding in Core Energetic Therapy is described.
SUMMARY A review of the rapidly expanding empirical research exploring the incidence, prevalence and characteristics of domestic violence committed by women against male intimates supports several conclusions: (1) the majority of abuse- in intimate relationships involves mutual aggression; (2) women are as likely to aggress against partners as are men, and men arc as likely as women to be the victims of intimate assaults; (3) women are more likely to be physically injured; and, (4) severe systematic abuse in intimate relationships is rare.
