Over many years of couples practice there have been hundreds of moments of intense enmeshed conflict in couples sessions where the only productive intervention in my therapeutic repertoire was to encourage each in the marriage to step back and “take in” the extent of difference between themselves and their partner; in essence, a differentiating intervention. The strength and limitation of this therapeutic direction is that the room is then left occupied by two individuals trying to figure out where they stand with each other; relationship conflict is markedly reduced but also the range of the relationship connection is narrowed. The maturity and tolerance in the relationship is generally increased but at the same time the emotional foundation of the relationship is thinned. The ultimate fate of the relationship is then left largely dependent upon the increasing maturity of both in the marriage and both partners rationally choosing to accept the other, limitations and all. A valued positive outcome to this approach was that each in the marriage has effectively taken back their neurotic projections from the marriage into their own individual psyche’s, thus freeing up the marriage to be the best it can be. Note that the end result of this approach depends largely upon the ability of each in the marriage to sustain themselves individually and individually mature and personally heal. Often such an approach is combined with individual therapy, often with quite positive outcomes. 

The attachment model enables a whole range of additional possibilities. Rather than viewing escalating conflict as destructive enmeshment that needs to be interrupted, it is viewed as dysfunctional expression of thwarted attachment need. Interventions are then directed to the underlying positive intent of how each partner is longing/seeking safe connection, but also defending/protecting from the anticipation that attachment is unsafe, each in fashion characteristic of their attachment history. Empathy of each others both desire and fear of connection is supported and built upon in therapy. A result of taking the therapy in this direction is that the underlying attraction/desire for the attachment is harnessed for the purposes of the therapy. This is in marked contrast to the differentiation model where underlying attachment seeking is often interrupted in the service of reducing unrealistic fantasy and enmeshment. 

Which ever model one subscribes to, attachment or differentiation, the natural history of marital therapy sessions always includes a large portion of polarizing, push away behaviors. Practically, what this means is that therapy generally alternates between work towards closening behaviors on the one hand, and reconnecting behaviors following polarization on the other hand. It is even possible to conceptualize the therapeutic process itself as a dialectic between these two opposite emotional moments. 

In recent years a groundswell of huge proportions has begun to impact the practice of marital therapy. This lies in the application of attachment theory pioneered by John Bowlby. Mary Ainsworth and Mary Main to the understanding and treatment of couples. Exemplified by the work of Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg, the foundations of this approach is the understanding that marital attachment is largely an adult expression of primary attachment styles learned in early childhood. A central point made by attachment theorists is that psychological differentiation follows after the creation of attachment in the developmental process; hence, it is reasoned that in marriage the same sequencing is important. The argument here is that to grow differentiation in a marital relationship without first growing attachment is to grow differentiation without a solid relational foundation upon which the marital differentiation can rest; that differentiation is only healthy when it is based upon the security of safe home-based attachment. That such differentiation ends up missing emotional depth and emotional connection. This is a very different view from those marital therapists who argue that initial differentiation is the necessary foundation for secure self-other relating. In the differentiation school of thought it is only in getting fully separate from one’s partner that one is then able to fully and richly “see” and “hear” and “experience” ones partner. From the differentiation perspective, it is the experience of psychological apartness that then enables a a taking down of negative projecting onto ones partner that then enables reattachment within the marriage. The thought here is that it is the taking down of projections that creates a renewed sense of safety with one’s partner.  

Relational psychoanalytic psychotherapy is an approach to depth therapy that is grounded in the human relationship between therapist and patient. This is a radical departure from the “rigid frame” of classic psychoanalytic treatment which emphasizes that the treatment situation not vary from session to session and that the therapist’s own personal qualities be highly minimized in the therapeutic process. With the advent of the “relational frame” the treatment of the same patient in varied treatment contexts becomes both understandable and salient. Practically, this enables the effective combining of individual, marital and group therapy modalities not readily possible within the classic model of treatment. The underpinning of these multi-modal approaches is the flexible constancy of the therapy relationship that spans across the different therapeutic contexts. With repect to the marriageofopposites, it especially powerful for each in the marriage to have individual therapist’s who then come together in four-way conjoint sessions for the couples work. This arrangement enables a highly stable form of marital therapy combined with in-depth individual work on the underlying issues fueling the marital conflict.

In escalation, the core-styled are centrally seeking to evoke connection/attachment/rapport where they feel it missing. In the escalating process, however, many additional variables emerge; the conflict itself tends to create rupture which can hugely increase the feeling of lost attachment. The protestive anger, meant to shake the distancing other into contact, typically results in the opposite; massive shutdown, withdrawal and unspoken shaming/blaming.  During this process the core-styled commonly regress into desperation and primitive anger. An unconscious goal that begins to form during these escalations, that is not generally acknowledged, is to induce primitive acting-out behavior on the part of the part of the distancer, so as to prove that they have badness too, thus reducing the terrible feelings of ostracizing shame/badness in the escalated core-styled.