The attraction of opposites--an object-relations understanding of family interaction over three generations

Severely dysfunctional families who manifest diametrically opposed, but complementary characteristics in the marital partners and in their children can be understood and treated in terms of Fairbairn's object-relations theory and the concept of ego-splitting. A family history is presented where these problems can be traced through three generations--both maternal and paternal sets of grandparents, parents and finally the children, boy and girl twins. Therapy was initially family-based and directed at helping the parents remove their projections and foci of differences from their children onto themselves. Later the marital dyad was treated intensively looking at the whole marital relationship, the collusions to maintain the splitting and finally enabling each partner to accept the split-off part of himself as belonging to himself instead of being projected onto his partner.