Couples as Parents

Kate Thompson is a couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist and senior staff member at Tavistock Relationships with over 20 years' experience of therapy with couples and individuals.

Couples as Parents: Explorations in Couple Therapy explores the complex task of parenting from the perspective of the couple relationship.

Section 1. Preparation for parenthood 1. 'All change, all change': Couples responding to the challenges of parenthood 2. Being a couple and developing the capacity for creative parenting: a psychoanalytic perspective 3. Becoming parents through ART: Infertility, loss and the dilemmas of assisted reproductive technology 4. Gay and lesbian parenting: Choices, choices and more choices Section 2. Developmental stages of the child 5. Perinatal couple psychotherapy: And the role of the infant 6. Back to the Future, Together 7. No Sex Please; We're Parents 8. Falling or flying: Managing the 'emptying of the nest' Section 3. Challenges to parenting 9. Perinatal loss: The impact on the couple and the next generation 10. Great Expectations: Blame, shame, and mourning in work with adoptive couples. 11. Holding the line: An exploration of the difficulties in maintaining a boundary around the couple for parents raising a child with a disability Section 4. Conflicted parents and their children 12. "Good cop - bad cop" : The challenge for parents of finding the middle ground. 13. Mentalization-Based Therapy - Parenting under Pressure (MBT-PP): what does it feel like? Does it work? How can it help? 14. From partners to co-parents: Treading a new landscape after Separation