Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Violent Couples: Understanding and Working with Domestic Violence

Abstract

This paper addresses questions such as: can couples troubled by violence in their relationship make use of couple therapy? Are particular types of violence amenable to such work, and others that are not? If we do work with violent couples, how can they be helped to understand what is going on between them, so as to stop being violent, and to keep them safe? Drawing on two case examples, we seek to demonstrate the benefits of couple psychoanalytic psychotherapy in promoting couples' understanding of the roots of their behaviour patterns as well as their impact on one another. This understanding can lead to reductions in mutual tension and hostility, and a consequent discontinuance of violence.

The emotional heritage of postwar Germany: The transgenerational transmission of a guilt conflict

“…The patient escaped from her parents' home—which was marked by physical and psychological violence—only to enter into a relationship with a violent man who would later become the father of her son. Motz (2014) and Humphries and McCann (2015) have pointed out that when it comes to domestic violence, relationship dynamics are characterised by the exercise of control: ‘One partner controls the other through threats of harm or physical harm and fear' (Humphries & McCann, 2015, p. 150). Further, they assume that the violence inflicted has its roots in interpersonal and personal problems.…”

“…More specifically, they posit that both partners were not sufficiently contained in their earliest experiences with relationships and that, as a result, they have a low capacity for mentalisation or, as the case may be, reflectivity. Hence, a relationship develops between both partners consisting of emotional dependence (Humphries & McCann, 2015). What consequently arises is ‘mindlessness, an empty, inanimate and even malignant sense of self.…”

“…What consequently arises is ‘mindlessness, an empty, inanimate and even malignant sense of self. The incapacity to reflect on and integrate mental experiences results in the body and bodily experience is also available as a sense of relief’ (Ruszczynski, 2006, p. 115, cited in Humphries & McCann, 2015, p. 155).…”

“…A woman's fear of a man and a man's violence can be explained ‘to a great extent by the need for contact’ with another person and a ‘frustrated need for attachment’ (Humphries & McCann, 2015, p. 156). Indeed, according to attachment theory, the earliest bonding experiences with the primary objects are crucial for later attachment patterns.…”

“…At an unconscious and more or less conscious level, her ongoing relationship with her second husband, despite the aspect of violence, can be understood as an expression of the conflict between a ‘need for autonomy and the need for intimacy’ (Humphries & McCann, 2015, p. 157). Thus, it can be assumed that the patient identified with her first husband because he represented emotional inaccessibility and independence, just like the patient's father who had returned from the battle of Stalingrad as a broken man, one who was emotionally unavailable.…”