The Tavistock model offers a useful foundational theoretical framework for thinking about the emotionally challenging and complex work with couples.  This workshop will offer an overview of some of the central theoretical cornerstones of the theory, including Morgan’s ‘couple state of mind’, the application of Britton’s concept of the “third” as it applies to couples, the structuring role of shared unconscious anxieties and defenses, and how projective identification can be usefully thought of in terms of couple communication.  We will think about what constitutes a healthy, functioning couple, and particularly about what capacities we are trying to develop in the couples we work with.

We will also consider whether we as psychoanalytic couple psychotherapists hold a place for the creative, aesthetic, and non-realistic even as we also help couples develop capacities for mature, differentiated object relating.  Enlisting Winnicott, Bollas and others we will explore the value of thinking about such powerfully felt experiences of the other while still valuing the necessity and importance of helping couples see each other more realistically.

Julie Friend, LCSW, BCD is Program Chair, Curriculum Chair and Faculty of the Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Group's Intensive Study Program in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with couples. She has served on the teaching and/or supervisory faculty at several Bay Area institutions and has published in Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, Fort Da, and Viewpoint.

She is a member of Section VIII of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association and of the British Society of Couple Psychotherapists and Counselors. She has a private practice including individuals, couples, and consultation in Berkeley, California.