THE NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY & INSTITUTE:
WORKS IN PROGRESS
247 East 82nd St., between 2nd & 3rd, NY, NY
Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 8:30 p.m.
Graciela Abelin-Sas, M.D.
Peter Mezan, Ph.D.
The Synergizing Potential of Individual & Couple Treatments:
Some Clinical Illustrations from a Collaborative Study
Aspects of the mind that frequently do not find representation in the individual field of treatment may be uncovered in the treatment of the couple. Within the closed system of a couple, mutual transferences potentiate each other and contribute to recurring behaviors and enactments. Each partner becomes the depository of the other’s highly specific transferences, which may barely emerge or remain inaccessible in individual treatment.
After sharing many cases that have been simultaneously in individual psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic couple therapy, we have been led to posit the existence of an unconscious organization of the couple, distinct from those of the individuals in it. When inflexible, this blocks individual development and imposes unconscious scripts on the couple, which take the form of repetitive enactments, resistant to analysis.
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