Extensive clinical scholarship has described the application of object-relational principles, particularly the operation of projective identification, to psychodynamic psychotherapy with couples. The author explores the way in which a more complete depiction of projective processes, one that incorporates each partner’s intrapersonal management of multiple internal object relations, interacting interpersonally in the couple therapy process, can explain the escalating cycles of conflict between couples that are elaborated in the family-systems literature, and be helpful in understanding the object-relational substrate of chronic conflict in couples more generally. A description of how to map each partner’s internal object world through the identification of these cycles in the early couple therapy process is elaborated in a theoretical model and illustrated with case material.
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