The impact of psychic trauma on love relationships: Implications for the practice of couple counselling

Abstract

Counselling psychologists working with couples inevitably encounter personal narratives embedded with traumata. These are often reported to impact the couple’s relationship or even to have caused the presenting problem. This paper draws on the psychodynamic literature on trauma and reflects on how ideas emerging in the analytic field can support our understanding of this phenomenon and facilitate relational recovery. Working with couples allows the practitioner to witness the emergence of traumatic material in the dyadic relational context and how this often relates to earlier trauma, whose genesis is likewise embedded in the dyad. The professional’s presence changes the relational context into a triadic one and this can then serve the important function of facilitating thinking and reflection about these experiences, thereby allowing a detoxification of the enactments arising between the couple. The risk inherent to working with trauma manifest within this context is discussed, as well as the relational stance required of the professional in order to avoid being experienced as an uninvolved bystander amplifying traumatic anxieties. Finally, this paper emphasises that counselling psychologists working with couples need to appreciate the emergence of reparative and creative interaction within the couple as trauma starts to recede into the relational background.