Being in Love

Finding true love is a journey of transformation obstructed by numerous psychological obstacles. Being in Love expands the traditional field of psychoanalytic couple therapy, and explores therapeutic methods of working through the obstacles leading to true love. Becoming who we are is an inherently relational journey: we uncover our truest nature and become most authentically real through the difficult and fearful, yet transformative intersubjective crucibles of our intimate relationships. In this book, Judith Pickering draws comparisons between Bion's concept of becoming in O, and being in love. She searches for pathways that lead away from relational confusion towards the discovery of genuine transformational relationships, and works towards finding better ways of relating to one another. This is achieved by encouraging couples to enjoy the actual presence, humanity, otherness and particularity of each other rather than expecting a partner to conform to our own expectations, projections, desires and presuppositions. Pickering draws on clinical material, contemporary psychoanalysis, cultural themes from the worlds of mythology and literature, and a wealth of therapeutic techniques in this fresh approach to couple therapy. Being in Love will therefore interest students and practitioners of psychoanalysis, psychology, and couple therapy, as well as all of those seeking to be more authentic in their relationships.

Judith Pickering is a psychoanalytic couple therapist, Jungian analyst and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Sydney. She is a senior supervisor and lecturer for the Australia and New Zealand Association of Psychotherapy. She is a member of The Australian and New Zealand Association of Jungian Analysts and the International Association for Analytical Psychology.

Grotstein, Preface. Part I: Being in Love. Prelude: Shooting the Albatross. Introduction: A Question of True Love? Love's Many Facets. The Marriage of Alterity and Altruism. Subject Relations. Falling in Love: An Exogamous Initiation. Part II: The Path of Love: An Obstacle Course. Love's Therapeutics. Love's Uncanny Choices. Veils of Projection. Relational Configurations. Interlocking Scenes. A Hall of Mirrors. The Narcissism of Echo. Thresholds: Bluebeard's Castle. Don't Look Back: Orpheus and Eurydice. Part III: Transformations in Love. Exogamy: A Marriage of all Loves. The Iconoclasm of Joy. Laetitia, Liveliness and Love. Alétheia: Becoming in Love. Bibliography