Symposium on object relations theory and love. Love, the couple, and the group: a psychoanalytic frame

After a brief summary of previous work on the intrapsychic preconditions of love relations, this paper explores the built-in contradictions between the sexual couple and its social group, their mutual equilibrium, and the formation and dissolution of couples within the group. Clinical case material illustrates how three dimensions of love relations-namely, sexual experience, object relations, and superego integration-jointly determine a couple's stability within the social group. Finally, sexual psychopathology affecting the couple's interaction with its social group is explored in terms of some frequent pathological developments.