Facing the contemporary couple in private practice Case reports and reflections from an intervision group

Abstract

This contribution explores the cultural representations of the contemporary couple emerging from psychoanalytic clinical practice with young adults and adults. The work stems from the intervision activity of a group of psychologists and psychotherapists with psychoanalytic orientation trained in Analysis of the Demand and stands in continuity with the recent research-intervention on couples conducted by SPS Studio di Psicosociologia. The article proposes three cultural models aimed at interpreting the relationship between individual identity and the couple context: the couple as a constraint limiting one’s possibilities for personal fulfillment, connected to identification with a “permanent nascent state”; the couple as an expected traditional adult goal, experienced prescriptively as compensation for the crisis of social belonging; the couple as an intermediate space of coexistence, a potential context for producing shared meaning between the private and public dimensions. The clinical reflections are accompanied by case reports that illustrate the collusive emotional dynamics through which clients bring the theme of living as a couple into therapy. The contribution examines the contemporary cultures that traverse the couple experience, highlighting both the conflicts and the generative potential of this relational contexts.