In this landmark book, David Scharff and Jill Savege Scharff, both psychoanalysts, develop a way of thinking about and working with the couple as a small group of two, held together as a tightly knit system by a commitment that is powerfully reinforced by the bond of mutual sexual pleasure.

In this landmark book, David Scharff and Jill Savege Scharff, both psychoanalysts, develop a way of thinking about and working with the couple as a small group of two, held together as a tightly knit system by a commitment that is powerfully reinforced by the bond of mutual sexual pleasure.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Offers an indepth and thoughtful exploration of the relevance of psychoanalysis to family therapy.

By drawing upon object relations concepts, the couples therapist is able to work with both the intrapsychic makeup of the partners and their ways of relating as a couple.

Object Relations Brief Therapy combines practical techniques with the depth of object relations theory, the wisdom of previous brief therapy writers, and, most notably, an emphasis on the unique therapeutic relationship. This new paperback edition includes a preface reviewing more recent developments in the area of brief therapy.

In this time of vulnerable marriages and partnerships, many couples seek help for their relationships. Psychoanalytic couple therapy is a growing application of psychoanalysis for which training is not usually offered in most psychoanalytic and analytic psychotherapy programs. This book is both an advanced text for therapists and a primer for new students of couple psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Its twenty-eight chapters cover the major ideas underlying the application of psychoanalysis to couple therapy, many clinical illustrations of cases and problems in various dimensions of the work. The international group of authors comes from the International Psychotherapy Institute based in Washington, DC, and the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships (TCCR) in London. The result is a richly international perspective that nonetheless has theoretical and clinical coherence because of the shared vision of the authors.