Publications

Books

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Couples on the Couch:
Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy and the Tavistock Model

Couples on the Couch: Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy and the Tavistock Model provides a clear guide to applying the Tavistock model of couple psychotherapy in clinical psychoanalytic practice, offering a compelling sampling of ideas about couple relationships and couple psychotherapy from a broadly relational psychoanalytic perspective. The book provides an in-depth perspective to understanding intimate relationships and the complexities of working in this domain.The chapters and their accompanying discussion also offer a fertile resource of material for readers who have not previously had exposure to the theory and technique of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, as well as offering an expanded and more rigorous approach to those who are already familiar with the Tavistock model. The chapters cover key topics including: unconscious beliefs, forms of couple relating, sex and aging and draw upon the work of Klein, Winnicott and Bion, as well as Attachment and Object Relations theory.

The majority of the contributors are affiliated with the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relations (TCCR) in London or The Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Group in Berkeley, California and make fundamental use of the theoretical model that has been developed at TCCR since the 1940's. Couples on the Couch provides an introduction to the TCCR approach to couple psychotherapy and exposure to the depth and breadth of this framework. Each of the chapters contain in-depth theoretical and clinical case material, presented in tandem with formal discussion, demonstrating how theory may be applied in a variety of clinical encounters and by doing so, deepening the theoretical understanding of the difficulties that beset couples and the challenges posed to those who work with them. The book provides an in-depth perspective to understanding intimate relationships and the complexities of working in this domain.

Couples on the Couch will be of great interest to couple psychotherapists and counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychoanalysts, as well as graduate and postgraduate students in psychology, marriage and family therapy, or those in psychoanalytic training programs.

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More About Couples on the Couch:
Approaching Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy from an Expanded Perspective

Following the critically acclaimed Couples on the Couch, this volume offers further compelling ideas about couple psychotherapy from a psychoanalytic perspective.

The book well represents the foundational basis of the Tavistock model and draws deeply from the work of Freud, Klein, Bion, Meltzer and the contemporary Kleinians, while expanding the theoretical model by featuring ideas about couple relationships written from a variety of psychoanalytic frameworks. These additional frameworks include Winnicottian Theory, Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory, Link Theory, Self Psychology, Attachment Theory, Mentalization Theory, and Contemporary Relational Theory. This rich array of theoretical models, presented with exemplifying clinical material, results in a diverse assembly of papers that offer the reader an in-depth and complex view of a psychoanalytic approach to understanding and working with the dynamics of couple relationships.

With clear clinical guidance, this book will be invaluable for all psychoanalysts and psychotherapists working with couples.

Published Papers

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List of Shelley Nathans’ Publications
with Links for Access:

Nathans, S. (Ed.) (2022) More About Couples on the Couch: Approaching Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy from an Expanded Perspective. Routledge.

Nathans, S. (2022) Revitalizing the Oedipal Model for LGBTQ Couples and Families. In Same-Sex Couples and Other Identities: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, D. McCann (Ed.), Routledge: London and New York, 24-42.

Nathans, S. (2021) Oedipus for Everyone: Revitalizing the Model for LBGTQ Couples and Families and Single Parents. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Spring, 2021.

Nathans, S. (2021) Further Thoughts on the Oedipal Lens. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 31:349-354.

Nathans, S. (2018). 45 Years: Review of the film written/ directed by Andrew Haigh. Fort da, XXIV:2.

Nathans, S. and Schaefer, M. (Eds.) (2017). Couples on the Couch: Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy, Routledge.

Nathans, S. (2016). Whose Disgust is it Anyway?: Projection and Projective Identification in the Couple Relationship. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 26:4.

Nathans, S. (2014) “Robert Wallerstein: 65 Years at the Center for Psychoanalysis”, Writer, Editor and Producer of the Documentary Film, San Francisco Center of Psychoanalysis.

Nathans, S. (2014). In Memory of James Fisher. Cpl. Fam. Psychoanal., 4(1):3.

Nathans, S. (2012) Infidelity as Manic Defence. Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, 2:165-180.

Nathans, S. (2011) Review of The Story of a Marriage, by Andrew Sean Greer. In Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, 1:143-144.

Nathans, S. (2009) Discussion: “The Macbeths in the Consulting Room”, by James Fisher. In fort da, XV: 56-65.

Silberschatz, G., Curtis, J. and Nathans, S. (1989). Using the patient’s plan to assess Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 26:40-46.

Nathans, S. (1988) Plan Attainment: An Individualized Measure for Assessing Outcome In Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. Doctoral Dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology, Berkeley, CA.

Vera, H. and S. Nathans (1981) On the Real and the Make-Believe. Human Studies, 4:37-47