Treating the love-sick patient.
Love-sick patients come to therapy because they are suffering from an obsession. Their lover has left, apparently for good. They cannot accept this fact, mourn the loss and get on with life. Object relations theory offers a framework for better understanding their suffering. The patients described have experienced early relationship disturbances, and their adult love offered an illusory defence against deep feelings of fragility and low self-esteem. Accepting the finality of their lover's departure meant re-experiencing feelings of abandonment and worthlessness. An effective psychodynamic strategy in cases like these is to focus on these painful feelings, particularly as they appear in the therapy relationship. Learning to tolerate them in this relationship can be a positive step towards accepting the lover's departure.
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D000328:Adult; D003379:Countertransference; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009769:Object Attachment; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D010553:Personality Development; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy