Dr. David Scharff explores the role of sexuality in human relationships by combining his extensive experience in individual, marital, family, and sex therapy with theoretical contributions from object relations theory and child development.

This is the second edition of a comprehensive manual that has become a classic in the field. In clear, readable prose it describes object relations theory and its use in psychotherapy.

Object relations therapy derives from psychoanalytic principles of listening, responding to unconscious material, interpreting, developing insight and working in the transference and countertransference toward understanding and growth. The family, however, is not related to as a set of individuals. It is viewed as a system comprising sets of relationships that function in ways unique to that family. These ways may support or obstruct the progress of the family or any of its individual members as they go through the developmental phases of family life.

This text offers a representative sample of the work of the major contributors to object relations theory and therapy. Object relations approaches have spread form the British Isles to exert a major influence on psychoanalytic thinking throughout the world. The development of object relations thinking from its beginnings in the work of Freud is followed through its many elaborations and applications up to the most recent work in the field today. This volume can stand on its own as an overview or as an introduction to more extensive study of the subject.

This text uses object relations theory for the dynamic therapy of marital conflict and sexual problems. The psychological mechanisms of transference, countertransference and projective identification are used in understanding, digesting, responding and conceptualising the whole experience in verbal form. The authors deal with the full complexity of the couple experience.

This is a short primer on object relations therapy. The content of the book derives from students' most frequently asked questions together with the Scharffs' responses. In an easy dialogue format, the Scharffs take readers beyond the forbidding aspects of theory and give them access to object relations therapy as a way of thinking and working that is easily understood and readily applicable to clinical practice.

The Legacy of Fairbairn and Sutherland provides the first comprehensive review of W.R.D. Fairbairn and John Sutherland's theories on psycho-social development. It reviews Fairbairn and Sutherland's ideas, traces the philosophical roots of their thinking, explores their legacy, and demonstrates their relevance to contemporary practice. International contributors set these psychoanalytic theories in their philosophical and cultural context. They discuss the growing acceptance of Fairbairn and Sutherland's work in Europe and the Americas. They discuss the theories' impact on current...

Fairbairn and Sutherland were radical psychoanalytic thinkers who deeply respected Freud's invention of psychoanalysis, but who disagreed with his idea that human infants are motivated by the need to discharge tension arising from sexual and aggressive instincts. Fairbairn argued on the contrary that what infants need is to be in a meaningful relationship, and Sutherland carried forward Fairbairn's thinking on the development of the person as a member of a social group.
International contributors set these psychoanalytic theorists in their philosophical and cultural context and discuss...

The essays clarify the manifold connections between the dynamics of family interaction and the internal object representations of its members. The book corrects the current bias in family studies and therapy, a bias which emphasizes the family system at the expense of understanding its members. The group's thinking is presented historically so that the reader recognizes the unfolding interplay among sensitive clinical observations, interventions, and the development and modification of elegant and provocative theory.