“The uncertainties afflicting global and family relationships has arguably never been greater than at present. The pressure to retreat to past certainties conflicts with the need to adapt to changed realities – for analysts and their patients. This book exemplifies how the best of psychoanalysis offers hope to families caught up in such temporal and spatial conflicts, providing a calm reflective space for those in the eye of the storm. Theoretically grounded, and well-illustrated clinically, it provides an exceptional navigational aid for those helping families whose future horizons have yet to appear.”Christopher Clulow PhD; Consultant Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, and Senior Fellow of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, London.“This is a must-read to help us encompass our disrupted times and states of being. International contributors provide a dazzling confrontation with the burning issues of our time – ruptured boundaries, states of occupation, changing gender identities, and broken links. They leaven the threat of despair by embracing uncertainty, living in the in-between, and learning from encounter with the Other, as they work toward transformation to rebuild a hopeful sense of self and society.”Jill Savege Scharff, MD, FABP, MRCPsych, Co-founder, International Psychotherapy Institute, Recipient, 2021 Sigourney Award. Co-author, The Interpersonal Unconscious“Urgency and Hope in Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, edited by Elizabeth Palacios and Silvia Resnizky, represents a profoundly important contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of couples and families facing the challenges of our contemporary landscape. Situated squarely in link theory, this volume examines the impact that such conditions as war, social instability, transformations in identity and sexuality, and changing couple and family configurations have on individual and interpersonal functioning and offers new and compelling ideas for working with modern couples and families. This is a book that belongs in every psychotherapist’s library.”James Poulton; Emeritus Faculty, International Psychotherapy Institute; author of Object Relations and Relationality in Couple Therapy: Exploring the Middle Ground“This important volume, written by esteemed international clinicians, offers a multi-dimensional perspective that focuses on the impact of social phenomena on couples and families. International contributors drawn from esteemed clinicians situate relationships in a broad context to discuss topics such as the impact of war on psychic and relational bonds; social responses to new family configurations, reproductive technology, and transexual identities; and link theory as a theoretical approach to understanding these issues. During these rapidly changing and turbulent times, this book is an essential and valuable resource for working with couples and families today.” Shelley Nathans, Ph.D. Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California“A stellar line-up of international contributors brings to a global readership the latest developments in psychoanalytic thinking about relationships. Tackling key issues shaping our contemporary lives, the authors combine a depth of focus with a breadth of vision – tracing the unconscious forces which shape us and which extend through many layers – from the couple to the family, to our wider communities and, indeed, our international relations. This important book is an example of hope – hope emergent from the compelling contributions of its authors, which show how the prism of a psychoanalytic lens enables us to think deeply about the most urgent and challenging issues of our time.”Andrew Balfour, PhD, Chief Executive, Tavistock Relationships, London.“The clinical and theoretical articles on urgency and hope in psychoanalytic couple and family therapy collected in this book excellently convey how diverse international psychoanalysis has become in our current world and society. The central theme running through this book is the fact that we as humans can only live together in community and that we must carefully protect this community. At the same time, we must deal with our dual human nature and our inherent aggressiveness and destructiveness towards our interpersonal links in couples, families and the international community – this book is so significant because it takes the dangers in all these areas seriously and at the same time conveys well-founded hope rather than despair.” Dr. Heribert Blass, IPA President
