Engaging Couples

Engaging Couples explores new ways of approaching some of the key issues of contemporary family life, including depression, living with long-term conditions, inter-parental conflict and domestic abuse to name but a few, refracting them through a lens that sees our relationships as fundamental to the fabric of our lives.

Andrew Balfour is Chief Executive at Tavistock Relationships, and a Fellow at St George's House, Windsor. He is a clinical psychologist, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and couple psychotherapist. With Mary Morgan and Christopher Vincent, he co-edited How Couple Relationships Shape our World: Clinical Practice, Research and Policy Perspectives. Christopher Clulow is a Consultant Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, a Senior Fellow of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, London, and a Fellow of the Centre for Social Policy, Dartington. He has published extensively on marriage, partnerships, parenthood and couple psychotherapy. Kate Thompson is a psychoanalytic couple psychotherapist, head of Tavistock Relationship's strategic development and Couple Therapy for Depression training, Kate has worked with couples for over 20 years and specialises in the impact of mental health difficulties on relationships.

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS FOREWORD Brett Kahr EDITORIAL Andrew Balfour, Christopher Clulow and Kate Thompson INTRODUCTION Policy and practice contexts Susanna Abse CHAPTER ONE Becoming a couple: psychoanalytic perspectives Andrew Balfour and Mary Morgan COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER ONE David Hewison CHAPTER TWO Couples becoming parents Christopher Clulow COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER TWO Marguerite Lawson Reid CHAPTER THREE Adopting together Julie Humphries and Krisztina Glausius COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER THREE John Simmonds CHAPTER FOUR Working with couples in groups Lucy Draper COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER FOUR Philip Cowan and Carolyn Pape Cowan CHAPTER FIVE Let's talk about sex Marian O'Connor COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER FIVE Janice Hiller CHAPTER SIX Couple therapy for depression Kate Thompson COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER SIX Jeremy Holmes CHAPTER SEVEN Mentalization based couple therapy Viveka Nyberg and Leezah Hertzmann COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER SEVEN Stanley Ruszczynski CHAPTER EIGHT Working with couple violence Anthea Benjamin, Parmjit Chahal, Steve Mulley and Antonia Reay COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER EIGHT Damian McCann CHAPTER NINE Working with the fractured container Avi Shmueli COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER NINE Christopher Vincent CHAPTER TEN Living Together with Dementia Andrew Balfour and Liz Salter COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER TEN Jane Garner