A RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO COUPLES PSYCHOTHERAPY

A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Psychotherapy presents an original model
of couples treatment, integrating ideas from a host of authors in relational psychoanalysis. It
also includes other psychoanalytic traditions as well as ideas from other social sciences. This
book addresses a vacuum in contemporary psychoanalysis devoid of a comprehensively
relational way to think about the practice of psychoanalytically oriented couples treatment.
In this book, Philip Ringstrom sets out a theory of practice that is based on three broad
themes:
• the actualization of self-experience in an intimate relationship
• the partners’ capacity for mutual recognition versus mutual negation
• the relationship having a mind of its own.