Unconscious Phantasies within a Couple Relationship

Abstract

An unconscious phantasy, a concept that was first advanced by Melanie Klein, is crucial for an understanding of the psychodynamic in psychoanalysis; it offers a portrayal of the ubiquity of a capacity for relatedness between internal objects and how this is mediated by the self in its relationship to external objects. Consequently, by attributing a dynamic quality and a relational role to objects, it is only with phantasies that we truly step into the domain of object-relations. A dual nature of unconscious phantasies, their defensive role on one side and their wish-fulfilling role on the other, can be observed to the utmost in a relationship setting between two individuals where phantasies in fact contribute to a construction of their couple fit and colour their interaction dynamics. In this paper the author introduces some clinical implications of the understanding of the concept of unconscious phantasies by presenting a clinical illustration of a psychotherapeutic work with a couple.