This is a journal devoted to the psycho-dynamics of the “marriage-of-opposites,” relationships variously characterized as minimizing/maximizing, leveling/sensitizing, fusing/isolating, clinging/avoiding, pursuing/distancing, hysterical/obsessional, and borderline/narcissistic. Many phenomena that branch off from this topic, including the “marriage-of-similarities,” will also be explored. This journal is meant to supplement more formal works on the topic; to provide a rough-hewn but alive picture of emergent understanding. In large part this work grows out of twenty-five years of doing intensive psychotherapy with both couples and individuals wherein marriage-of-opposites dynamics figured highly in determining the directions of people’s lives. In addition, outside of psychotherapy settings, I have repeatedly encountered these patterns in the lives of friends and colleagues, American cinema and literature, and most recently, in the relationships of American political figures.
About Orin Borders, Ph.D.
Orin Borders, Ph.D, a psychologist in private practice with a long standing interest in the Marriage-Of-Opposites, is the originator on this site.
