For couples

An intimate relationship can certainly offer companionship, security and shared routines. But often tension and difficulties between partners reveal unconscious patterns, parental influences and projections: things we blame the other for without recognising their origins in ourselves. That person who at first seemed to complete us may end up disappointing us, not simply because they have changed, but because we are beginning to see more clearly who they actually are.

Using Jungian couples therapy to address these experiences means learning how to distinguish our partner from our expectations and to take responsibility for aspects of ourselves that we have left for the other to manifest. Rather than remaining confined to our original, complementary roles, imagined at the outset, the often unnamed and unconscious agreement between partners has to be renegotiated. This way, both partners can develop a fuller range of feeling, thought, imagination and action.

A good relationship also has the potential to help partners discover more about themselves and turn the relationship into a path of individuation, allowing closeness and individuality to develop together. This does not mean avoiding conflict or locking someone into suffering but approaching difficulties as opportunities for dialogue and change. Here love can move from enchantment towards partnership and companionship during each other’s continuing development.