Reversing the negative cycle: Interpreting the mutual influence of adaptive, self-protective measures in the couple

The author discusses factors that shape the subjective meanings each member of the couple gives to marital interactions and the intersubjective disjun ctions between the partners that can result. These include adaptive, self-p rotective mechanisms, the wish for mastery, guilt, and defense against grie ving Through illuminating these factors, psychoanalytic couple therapy can enhance empathic awareness of how each partner's attitudes, actions, and on ce adaptive defenses can actualize the other's transference expectations an d evoke his or her painful and traumatic childhood relationships and experi ences.