When I began my work as a psychotherapist, I noticed that the couples best able to work through the challenges, conflicts, and changes of their relationship were those who tended to work on their own. Like everyone else, they had disagreements, fears and problems but, unlike most people in our unstable world, they were committed to making their relationship last despite the hazards and upheavals they both faced. This intense commitment gave them the courage to open their mutual lines of communication and expose themselves to each other. Each was made vulnerable yet each became stronger so that their relationship could grow, thrive, and deepen.

The methods suggested in this book, although therapy-based, are really dependent on self-exploration by you and your partner. True sexuality and emotional fulfillment require quality time and intimate attention. The longer you explore and the deeper each partner is willing to delve, the richer the experience will become.

In exploring these areas of intimate experience, I found the couples who consulted me were not usually at ease with the intrusion of a therapist. It was because of this revelation that the couples work described in Couple Dynamics emerged. Since the spirited couples who came to see me wanted to work primarily on their own, I found myself teaching guidelines and procedures for this work to all the couples I saw in therapy. Even those who might have been too timid to work spontaneously without me were able to do so with encouragement. I admit this gave me great satisfaction:

I have never been completely comfortable with couples therapy because I often feel like an intruder in a relationship where I do not belong. I am not interested in some kind of emotional menage a trois. The sooner I can give the couple my blessing, as it were, to get on with their own lives, the happier I am. I found the procedures of couple dynamics, as they developed, could give such a firm structure to the work the couple could do together that in the case of couples whose relationship was already solid (I am not talking about marriages on the point of collapse, or relationships based on pathology or compulsive adaptations) my role as therapist consisted entirely of setting out procedures and guidelines—just as I have done in this book.

It may be useful to continue the story of how this couples work developed by giving examples from the cases of real people (using pseudonyms) of the kind of result which can be achieved. Of course every couple is unique, but you may find some emotional empathy with their experience and perhaps take courage from it. This book and the tasks it proposes may seem difficult at first. This is because I have tried to allow for all eventualities, and the descriptions of suggested explorations are very detailed. You will find that if you give the book a preliminary reading in a normal relaxed way then actually try the explorations as a couple, things will fit into place quite quickly: your own experience of the work will become the best guide.

But first let us look at some of the experiences of couples whose work with me has shaped the explorations I suggest.

I used to think of Mark and Mary as "the frightened couple." They were also, like some other couples I have seen, "Babes in the Wood." Both were tall and good-looking but extremely quiet and shy. They did scholarly work and seemed to live entirely for each other and for their child. But their emotional contact, though extremely close, was also somewhat flat and low key. They came to therapy because they felt something missing, a lack of intensity. This was easily explained by their history. Both had passed their early childhood as refugees in Europe, their families had been bombed out of their homes and ended up in camps. Mark had experienced physical abuse by his frantic parents; Mary had experienced terror of the environment and of her mother who had become cold and ruthless.

Mark was "fright-rigid" (see chapter 4): he could at times be completely immobilized and muscle-bound, so much so that if he were asked to raise his arm he would keep it up in the air until told to let it down again. Mary's fear had put her in a state of "fright-paralysis" (also described in chapter 4): she had very little muscle tonus, her body was slim and soft, and her breathing very shallow. The breathing block enabled her to resist any extreme excitement just as Mark's muscular rigidity ensured that any excitement he might feel was immediately contained.

The first task in therapy was for Mary and Mark to gain some emotional and physical realization of what they already knew intellectually: that they had been frightened out of their natural capacity for spontaneous interaction. Both were highly emotional inside (still waters run deep) and were highly sensitive to this in each other, but as Mary put it, when they felt the urge to run wild, they did not know how.

Most of the work they did on their own. They discovered right away that their eye contact, at least with each other, was good: sustained looking brought on loving feelings. It was their bodies which somehow could not follow. In their lovemaking Mark had already been aware of Mary's paralysis, Mary of Mark's rigidity. After trying couple dynamic exercises they could observe these more objectively and in detail. They evolved a work sequence in which Mark would help Mary breathe out fully, pressing gently down on her chest, massaging the upper abdomen, while staying in eye contact. She would begin to let go into small, spontaneous movements and tremblings of the legs, pelvis and shoulders. This made her flush with embarrassment at first, then take on a pink glow (she had been pale). Mary's showing of her physical spontaneity to Mark was of key importance.

In the sessions where Mark breathed out deeply, his rigidity was a persistent problem. They tried the various explorations which involve vigorous physical activity such as kicking and banging. The expression of anger began to loosen Mark's musculature, although in itself this would not have been enough. The key was Mark's learning to relax while Mary touched him softly. At first this led him to a nervous and urgent wish to make love, as if soft touching led to feelings which had to be discharged at once. Although their lovemaking—outside the context of the explorations—did become more intense, Mark's acceptance of non-sexual touching (back rubs, massage of the back of the neck etc.) brought out a long-repressed need to be cared for and held.

In the work on specific emotions, Mark had most success with anger. Mary could express fear but had difficulty with anger. She could go through the motions, but not with much conviction. They consulted me on this and I concluded that it was of no importance: despite what some therapists say, not everybody is bursting with anger. Couples work of the kind proposed in this book aims to reveal emotions, not to produce emotions which are not already there. Mary (whose history showed she had become stuck in fear, not anger) would always be a quiet person, although she was becoming more assertive.

The main benefit of the couples work Mark and Mary did was precisely what they hoped for: an increased capacity for passionate excitement and for shared pleasure. They also occasionally "went wild" now in vigorous arguments which were quite productive: even if Mary did not burst into a physical expression of rage, she was more at ease in speaking her mind and this goaded Mark to express some of his frustrations with everyday problems. At last report they were continuing with the work, doing a session every few weeks or so because they found this helpful and enjoyed it.