This self-access class explores how therapists can understand and respond to couple conflict in contemporary relationships. Drawing on psychoanalytic and systemic thinking, the session examines how difference, projection, power, culture and unconscious processes shape conflict between partners.
The presentation considers when conflict is developmentally meaningful, when it becomes entrenched or harmful, and how therapists can assess risk, containment and ethical limits to couple work. While grounded in work with couples, the session also extends beyond the dyad to reflect on diverse relational configurations, including LGBTQ+ relationships and open or non-monogamous contexts, where traditional models may require adaptation.
This recorded conference presentation is now available as a COSRT self-access class and was originally delivered at COSRT’s Winter Conference 2025.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Understand how difference and unconscious processes contribute to conflict in couple relationships
- Distinguish between manageable conflict and situations involving risk, abuse or violence
- Reflect on the impact of culture, gender, sexuality and power on couple dynamics
- Assess the limits of couple therapy and the conditions required for safe clinical work
- Extend clinical thinking beyond the dyad where relational complexity requires it
Presentation structure
- Why conflict is inherent in intimate relationships
- Difference, projection and unconscious couple processes
- When conflict escalates into violence or abuse
- Sociocultural influences on couple conflict
- Clinical assessment, containment and ethical decision-making
- Thinking beyond the dyad in contemporary relationship configurations
About the Trainer
Dr Damian McCann, D.Sys.Psych., is a psychoanalytic couple psychotherapist working at Tavistock Relationships, London, an adjunct faculty member of the International Psychotherapy Institute (IPI), Washington, DC, an associate of Queen Anne Street Practice, London, and an editorial board member of Couple & Family Psychoanalysis.
He is also a consultant systemic psychotherapist with many years of experience working with children, adolescents, and their families. He has a particular interest in working with gender and sexual diversity in psychoanalytic practice and has published and taught widely on this topic.
His doctoral research was concerned with understanding the meaning and impact of violence in the couple relationships of gay men, and he is involved in developing approaches to working with couples more generally in which there is violence and abuse. His edited book ‘Same-Sex Couples and Other Identities: Psychoanalytic Perspectives’ was published by Routledge in 2021, and he is the co-editor of Couples as Parents: Explorations in Couple Psychotherapy, to be published this year by Routledge.
