Object Relations Couple Therapy

Family Therapy Institutes of Firenze and Treviso

David E. Scharff, M.D. Jill Savege Scharff, M.D.

International Psychotherapy Institute

The Psychosomatic Partnership

SOMATIC PARTNERSHIP (with large psychic component)

PSYCHOSOMATIC PARTNERSHIP

(evenly balanced)

PSYCHOLOGICAL PARTNERSHIP

(with varying somatic component)

Dicks 1967

Projective Identification in MarriagePerceptions of the spouse occur “as if the spouse were part of oneself. The partner is then treated according to how this aspect of oneself was valued:spoilt and cherished, or denigrated and persecuted.”

Dicks 1967

Joint Marital Personality“This joint personality or integrate enabled each half to rediscover lost aspects of their primary object relations, which they had split off or repressed, and which they were, in their involvement with the spouse, re-experiencing by projective identification.”

Bion

• Theory of Unconscious Life of Groups

• “Container/Contained” Model of Projective Identification

• Interpersonal Origin of Mind

MODELS OF THERAPY

Transference andCountertransference in Couple Therapy

Matching the Therapist’s Internal Objects

• Organizes the experience beyond what makes intellectual or conscious sense

• Unconscious communication occurs when there is resonance with therapist’s internal objects

• The action of projective and introjective identification in the therapeutic setting

Two Forms of Transference

•Focus

•Context

Contextual Transference Transference to the mother’s holding capacity for the infant. Life goes on within the sphere of being cared for and understood by the mother.•Contextual Countertransference

Therapist feels taken for granted as an understanding parent if transference is (+). Therapist feels treated generally as non-understanding parent if transference is (-).

Focused Transference Transference stemming from the patient’s internal object relations, the relatively discrete self and object images.

•Focused Countertransference Therapist feels treated as discrete parts of patient’s inner world.

Racker (1968)

CountertransferenceA fundamental condition of receiving the patient’s projections and tolerating them inside as projective identifications.

Segal 1981

Countertransference:Nonverbal constant interaction in which the patient acts on the analyst’s mind.

Jill Scharff 1992

• Countertransference enables us to detect the problem

• Countertransference is the medium for its resolution

Bion

Negative capability:

Being without memory or desire

Geography of Transference

Containment

Individual // Family // Therapist

Geography of Transference

• Containment• Space

Here There

• Time Now Past: Back-Then

Future: If-and-When

• Type of Transference Contextual

Focused

A Compass for Navigating Transference and Countertransference

Countertransference inFamily & Couple Therapy

• Reflects therapist’s role as providing the holding context to the family or couple

• Resonates with the therapist’s internal couple & family

• Arises as therapist meets the family or couple at its boundary, arising from the experience of taking in family’s shared projective identifications

David E. Scharff &Jill Savege Scharff © 2005 References

Scharff, D. E. and Scharff, J. S. (1991). Object Relations Couple Therapy. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Scharff J. S. and Scharff, D. E. (1994). Object Relations Therapy of Physical and Sexual Trauma. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Scharff, J. S. and Scharff, D. E. (1998). Object Relations Individual Therapy. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Scharff, D.E. and Scharff, J.S. (In Press) Treating Relationships. Jason Aronson.

International Psychotherapy

Institute

David E. ScharffJill Savege Scharff

© 2005