“Collusive Infidelity,” Projective Identification, and Clinical Technique Robert Mendelsohn The author presents the concept of “collusive infidelity” and the role of projective identification as ubiquitous in the unconscious encouragement of infidelity through triangulation. He also discusses how to work with this dynamic in couples therapy, particularly by attending to the clinician’s own countertransference reactions. To illustrate these ideas he provides a commentary on a session where collusion dynamics were observed. Finally, he examines how the concept of collusive infidelity can provide a link between psychoanalytic and family systems theories and suggests that the concept of collusive infidelity can be helpful when working with a couple who are in the wake of an affair.

In the present paper I first present the concept of “collusive infidelity” and the role of projective identification as ubiquitous in unconscious encouragement of infidelity through triangulation. I then discuss how to work with this dynamic in couples therapy, particularly by attending to the clinician’s own countertransference reactions. To illustrate these ideas I provide commentary on a session in which I became better attuned to a couple’s collusion dynamics through examining my own emotional reactions. Finally, I examine how the concept of collusive infidelity can provide a link between psychoanalytic and family systems theories (particularly when one is cognizant of the couple’s projective defenses) and how the concept can be helpful when working with a couple in the wake of an affair.

The author wishes to thank Ms. Margaret Klein for her help with this paper. Psychoanalytic Review, 101(4), August 2014

© 2014 N.P.A.P.

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PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION AND COLLUSIVE INFIDELITY: INTRODUCTION

About fifteen years ago, I had a single session with a couple in their late thirties (married with two young children). They presented for therapy because “Denise” had recently caught her husband “Kevin” cheating for the third time. Kevin surprised me by appearing contrite and somewhat confused about the state of the marriage. Denise appeared anything but confused—she railed against Kevin’s betrayal and moral depravity. Though I agreed with her in considering cheating a moral transgression, I did not join her in her condemnations, which led her to include me in them: “All you men are [expletive deleted] pigs. You all stick together. You probably cheat on your wife. None of you have respect for women. . . . None of you know what it’s like to be hurt.” I responded to this somatically: I felt an ache in the pit of my stomach, and mildly nauseated. After a moment’s reflection I suggested that, since it seemed clear that Denise had made up her mind to divorce Kevin, it would be best if we spent the remaining session time discussing the impact that a divorce would have on the family. Denise responded to this suggestion by storming out of the session, I assumed to call a lawyer. Kevin, however, told me that this entire series of events—his cheating, getting caught, the two of them going to couples therapy, and her storming out—had all happened once before. I was rather stunned by this series of events. I, like Kevin, felt confused about what was happening. As Kevin left, he made a comment that helped me understand this couple: “It just doesn’t seem like we’re ever going to find out what’s wrong with us. . . . I guess I’m just stuck in this.” With this offhand comment, Kevin had located the infidelity problem as within the couple (“with us”) rather than in him, exclusively. Furthermore, realizing that Denise had exited a previous couples therapy session—but not her marriage—suggested to me that she preferred to be married to a “cheater” than to be alone, and she preferred maintaining the status quo of their dysfunctional relationship to the potentially dangerous realization that she may have contributed to Kevin’s infidelity. Finally, my somatic

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reaction, coming shortly after Denise’s tirade that “men are [expletive deleted] pigs,” seemed to me to be an induced countertransference reaction of guilt and self-­disgust as a result of projective identification. I hypothesized that it was Denise’s guilt and her belief that she was inherently unlovable (disgusting) that I was experiencing, through the complex and confusing messages and double messages that were occurring within this couple. My ideas about this couple, and this session, are heavily informed by what I now have begun to call collusive infidelity, which occurs by means of projective identification. PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION AND COLLUSIVE INFIDELITY

Projective identification is a term first introduced by Melanie Klein (1946). It refers to a psychological process in which a person strives for emotional balance by engaging in a particular kind of projection. It is more complex than simple projection in that it involves an interactive process between two people. At the core of this process is the idea of acting “as if”: That is, a person engaging in this defense is essentially making assumptions about the motives and beliefs of the other, and then acting “as if” their assumptions are true. In other words, the person engaging in this dynamic projects motives, beliefs, and feelings onto the other and then identifies with those projected contents, reincorporates them, and responds accordingly. Projective identification is, therefore, a kind of closed circuit, which typically has the effect of a self-­fulfilling prophecy, because it pulls the other into the projector’s exclusive, closed loop. I may, for example, assume you despise me because you believe I am weak and that I am destined to fail; in response to my own assumptions, I may then become demoralized and defensive, withdraw, and give up. Whether or not you believed I was weak and destined to fail before, you most likely do now, since everything in my behavior and manner pulls for that. This is the part of this defense that is interactive: Even though my behavior is the result of a self-­contained loop, I enact it with such conviction, I draw you, the other, right into performing my drama with me. What happens when my drama also includes an extramarital relationship? Can a couple push and pull

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each other to enactments that triangulate and are destructive to the marriage? And if so, how? The very name for this defense—projective identification— reflects the theory that the assumptions I have made about you really reveal my own unconscious contents: my beliefs about self and other, my own fantasy/affect constellations, and especially my worst fears and most unacceptable feelings. Because I cannot acknowledge them, I project my toxic thoughts, feelings, and beliefs onto the other, and in doing so I am able to disown them. This pushing off of uncomfortable thoughts or feelings is, according to McWilliams (1994), the benefit of the defense. By inducing (or recognizing) these unwanted experiences in the “other,” one is more easily able to avoid becoming aware that they are really part of one’s own experience. Work with the individual client who frequently uses projective mechanisms is confusing and frustrating enough for the therapist, but, as one can imagine, treating a couple in which both partners engage heavily in it poses many additional challenges, and can feel overwhelming. This is especially so in work with couples whose unconscious contents—by the sometimes cruel miracle of selective mating—match up like puzzle pieces, such that they continually feed into each other’s fantasies. This may lead to a “shared fantasy,” a concept introduced by Sander (1989). If a couple’s shared fantasy involves the triangulation of relationships, secrecy, and the dichotomy of victimizing and being victimized, we have a situation fraught with psychological danger and ripe for a collusive relationship. Collusive infidelity is a relationship where one member of the marital couple is unconsciously encouraging the other member to engage in an illicit sexual relationship with an outsider to the marriage. Neither member of the couple is conscious of the collusion that is occurring, so that the member who is cheating is behaving in ways typical of someone who is unfaithful. That is, he is pursuing a clandestine affair while safeguarding the secrets and conflict of interest inherent in the practice. This act requires skill in deception and duplicitous behavior. To hide an affair while encouraging the other to think that his or her suspicions are ridiculous requires a degree of malicious lying, commonly called “gaslighting.”1

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This collusive dynamic has some similarities—and crucial differences—with the more commonly understood concept of “enabling.” This concept has a long history, as it has been associated with one family member’s approach to another member’s substance abuse. In that context, it signifies dysfunctional approaches that are intended to help but in fact may perpetuate an addictive problem (Smith-­Acuna, 2011). A common theme of enabling in this latter sense is that the third party takes responsibility, blame, or makes accommodations for a person’s harmful conduct (with what the third-­party considers to be the best of intentions, or from fear and insecurity that inhibit his or her constructive action). The practical effect is that the person with the problem does not have to take any responsibility and is shielded from any awareness of the harm his or her addiction is inflicting. Thus, the person feels no pressure to change. Enabling is often considered in the etiology of substance abuse. As an example, in an enabling marriage the codependent spouse believes incorrectly that he or she is helping the alcoholic by calling in sick for the spouse at work, making excuses that prevent others from holding the spouse accountable, and generally cleaning up the mess that occurs in the wake of the spouse’s impaired judgment. In reality what the enabling spouse is doing is hurting, not helping. Enabling prevents psychological growth in the person being enabled and can contribute to negative symptoms in the enabler. Generally, individuals who enable others are thought to have weak boundaries, low self-­esteem, and difficulty being assertive (Beattie, 1986). Collusion, however, is more involved than enabling. “Collusion” suggests a more active involvement in the marital partner’s enactments. In other words, a “colluder” may also be an “enabler,” but an enabler is not necessarily a colluder. Whereas an enabler simply may be trying to adjust to life with someone who acts out his or her addictions, the enabler’s primary conscious and unconscious experience is that he or she is suffering. While the colluder is consciously suffering he or she is also, at least on some unconscious level, plotting and planning. That is, the colluder has his or her own (unconscious) motives for encouraging the partner’s infidelity.

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A Cautionary Note: Do Not Blame the Victim

Before going forward I want to stress that I am not suggesting that a “victim” of marital cheating is solely responsible for his or her mate’s cheating. For one, such an argument would be tantamount to “blaming the victim.” Also, except under extremely rare circumstances, it is not accurate. The issues involved in marital infidelity are complex and rooted in many conscious and unconscious conflicts. Furthermore, psychoanalysts have long prized the distinction between thoughts, feelings, and actions. Part of adulthood is being responsible for one’s actions, regardless of unconscious motivations or dyadic involvement.2 In this regard, in this paper I focus primarily on observing the unconscious dynamics that highlight the couple’s unconscious collusions and triangulations., by an in-­depth examination of the role of projective identification (and with this a collateral focus on the therapist’s countertransference). This work stands in contradistinction to the cognitive, structural, and systems approaches to couples therapy. These therapies focus only on the manifest content communications of the couple, and thereby often miss the covert, unconscious dynamics. It is the focus on the latent, unconscious communications of a couple that distinguishes the psychoanalytic treatment approach from every other. However, one danger inherent in a therapist’s discomfort and reluctance to blame the victim of an affair is that the therapist as well as the couple can be blinded to and/or gagged by a collusive dynamic. As a rule, therapists should avoid blaming either member of a couple, regardless of their conscious or unconscious transgressions. Blame might feel satisfying, but it is not a particularly therapeutic tool—especially when compared to empathically seeking understanding. If a therapist is generally empathic and not judgmental, but he or she finds himself or herself blaming one member of a couple, the therapist might want to be alert to the possibility that he or she is being incited into an enactment. In all couples therapy, a prominent transference is a “sibling transference,” (Mendelsohn, 2009): That is, each member of the couple wants to be the good one to the transferential parent (therapist). This can be assessed most clearly by projective identi-

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fication. Thus, a therapist will observe each member of a couple trying to pull the therapist into seeing him or her as the favored child. The easiest way to be favored in this context is to convince the therapist that you are right and your spouse is wrong. Consequently, the therapist is assigned the role of becoming a kind of arbiter of the truth (and, for each member of the couple, the truth tends to be his or her own version of events, as opposed to the partner’s version). Projective identification in all couples tends to pull for the therapist to adjudicate disputes and determine the real truth. In situations in which the therapist feels pulled to pronounce what is true, I have found the following axiom to be helpful: The truth always lies somewhere in between; therefore a search for the truth is typically irrelevant, counterproductive, and often meaningless—it is a search to nowhere.3 Furthermore, in circumstances such as matters of collusive triangulations, where the “manifest content truth” is that there is a “cheater” and a “cheated upon,” the truth is even more difficult to uncover.4 One can only imagine what a mess the therapy is (and, unfortunately, this happens often enough) when the therapist begins to collude with the “victim” of the extramarital affair. In this kind of treatment, the therapist searches for the truth and finds that the “victim” is right and needs sympathy, while the “cheater” is wrong and needs condemning. Utilizing the Concept of Collusive Infidelity in Couples Therapy: Maintaining a Focus on the Countertransference

To restate, the task here is to examine the role of projective identification in the unconscious encouragement of infidelity in the marital couple. To do so, I have introduced the concept of collusive infidelity, which is a relationship wherein one member of the marital couple is unconsciously encouraging the other member to engage in an illicit sexual relationship with an outsider to the marriage. Most often, neither member of the couple is conscious of the collusion that is occurring. Ogden (1982) sees projective identification as a complex developmental process, not simply a pathological defense. For him,

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the defense is the key to an individual’s psychic growth, because it enables the person to expand his or her own subjectivity through interaction with another. Ogden views the defense as an unconscious process involving three phases: a fantasy of placing one’s mental contents in the mind of another, who is thereby felt to be controlled from within; interpersonal pressure on the other to think, feel, and behave in accordance with the fantasy; and the return of the mental contents in an altered form. This process of defense, communication, and psychological growth is sometimes thought of as a way of metabolizing indigestible experiences or of preserving valuable ones that the individual is afraid of destroying. It can be reasoned that Ogden is suggesting that the defense helps one to elicit another’s aid in processing difficult or important experiences and putting those experiences into a more accessible form. If the therapist can understand a couple’s projective communications in this way, it is possible for him or her to develop a deepened understanding of his or her countertransference. This is especially important when the therapist is working with the extreme marital tensions that occur in the aftermath of the extramarital affair. Furthermore, when the therapist suspects that the affair has been collusive, skill in listening to latent content and particularly skill in listening to his or her own induced countertransference stimulated through the couple’s unconscious inciting are essential clinical tools. In the following vignette and discussion, I attempt to provide an example of how my countertransference data was enriched by understanding a couple’s collusive dynamics. In other words, by experiencing this couple’s projective defenses, I was able to more fully understand the inciting quality of their triangulation enactments. Will and Becky: A Case of Collusive Infidelity

“Will,” 44, and “Becky,” 45, were raised in suburbs not far from each other in New York City, but had never met until they found each other at a large Midwestern university. At the time, Will was completing his final year of law school and Becky was finishing

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medical school. They had a passionate, whirlwind courtship, married within a year, and returned to the New York region to work and raise a family. Will and Becky have been married for nineteen years and have a seventeen-­year-­old son and a fifteen-­year-­old daughter. Will acknowledges a series of affairs, mostly brief encounters, but one lasted over two years. Each relationship has ended because Will has gotten caught by Becky (his most recent indiscretion was discovered one month before their first visit to me). Becky claims that she has never cheated on Will and that her only premarital sexual experience was one long-­term boyfriend during college. Psychoanalytic understanding of the extramarital affair posits that it is the result of an oedipal fixation, in its many vicis­ situdes.. Systems theory looks at infidelity as part of a couple’s ­dynamic system. This would suggest that, in some way, Becky encourages affair relationships. Because systems theory does not include an understanding of the unconscious, this theory has no way to account for how such encouragement might occur, since the spurned spouse is almost always angry and consciously condemning of the “cheater”-­spouse. Despite their other differences, both psychoanalytic and systems theory might agree that any of the following dynamics are possible: Becky feels too deadened to please Will, and/or she is vicariously living through Will’s affairs (perhaps she is latently homosexual, and is, in some way, taking Will’s lovers as her own). Becky has found a way to use Will’s affairs, which inevitably go badly, to her advantage. Both theories might also suggest that Becky hates and envies anyone who is able to love and fears that her hate will destroy any love that she can offer her husband. On the one hand, then, Becky might be relieved that Will can be with someone to occupy him. Ultimately, however, Becky would still need to hate and destroy each of Will’s lovers since they represent Becky’s inability to love. While in such circumstances an enabler might have similar dynamics to what we see in the colluder, the latter would also be exerting emotional pressure on the spouse to step outside of the marriage, be caught, ask for forgiveness, and step out again.

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Vignette: Session 9 Becky: . . I can’t stand the way, Marty [a close friend of Will’s] treats him. He stood Will up for dinner . . . again. It’s the third time!    I am bewildered by this. For the first eight sessions, Becky has been raging at Will, condemning him for his affairs. Now she is saying that she is concerned about Will being betrayed by a male friend. I also have a kind of déjà vu experience that I have heard Becky say something like this before. Therapist: Does this connect, in any way, to your concerns about Will’s relationship with Janet [Will’s most recent affair]? Becky: No. I just don’t like how Marty treats him and I don’t like to hear my husband complaining. [said sternly] Therapist: What does his complaining trigger in you?    Becky is now becoming impatient with me, actually a bit angry and attempting to stifle expressing it. I can’t understand why, nor do I understand why we are talking about this. I am feeling a sense of dread. I have a dawning feeling that I will soon be dismissed . . . fired, by Becky. This kind of thing has happened to me before (see above). Becky’s discomfort with my changing the subject also suggests a certain pressure that I am beginning to feel. That is, Becky has been sitting with this content and she feels it is imperative to stay with it. For me, this often suggests a need to expel something onto the other—in other words, a projective identification. I’m beginning to think that Becky is angry because I have persisted in questioning her and thus I am encouraging—no, forcing—a discussion about the totality of this couple’s extramarital relations, not just Will’s affairs. I now believe that, instead of this, I was supposed to join Becky in a condemnation of Will’s friend, Marty, just as I was supposed to join her in a condemnation of Will’s most recent affair. Becky: Marty is a liar. You can see him if you want, but not with me. He’s not loyal . . . he’s a user.    Things suddenly seem more clear to me, and I now believe that I can formulate a response. Therapist: Only you love Will. Only you are loyal to Will. He should never leave you, because everyone in the outside world will hurt him.

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Becky: Drop dead! You are twisting my words. [said somewhat pleadingly] Marty has hurt Will over and over. Therapist: If I drop dead, Will will have only you. Becky: [crying] I don’t know what to do. I think that I don’t know how to love, but I do love Will. Yes, it’s true. . . . I’m the only one who really loves him. Therapist: If you do love Will, then why do you say you “don’t know how to love”? Maybe what you mean is that you are afraid that your anger at Will for his sexual betrayals of you has harmed all of the love you have for him? And, Becky, what does it mean to you that Will has been silent this entire time? Will: [interrupts] I have been feeling protected . . . no, I have been feeling . . . let them just kill each other, off. Therapist: Like when your father and mother fought? Will: Yeah, kind of, no . . . actually, most of the time, my father just sat impassively, as she ranted and raved at him. Therapist: So this is a chance to see a father fight for you? Will: I wish that it was for me. No, it’s just that you are fighting with her? Therapist: [turning to face both members of the couple] So, what does an affair do for the two of you? Will: For me, I guess it’s that I love Becky and I need her and I also hate her. I can’t live with her and I can’t live without her. I feel best two times in my life are, one, when I can sneak away from her and I’m with somebody else, another woman. And, two, when I am back with her and she’s forgiving me, and protecting me from my enemies. Therapist: And, for you, Becky, there must be more to this for you?    I have begun to feel guilty and ashamed, almost as if my asking questions is something bad and/or shameful, or even disgusting.

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Becky: I can’t be his wife. I can’t be his mother. I’m not sexy. I’m not maternal. I have small breasts. Therapist: Say more about this. Becky: When I was about thirteen, I realized that my breasts were small. I was jealous of the other girls. I was even jealous of my mother. I thought that I was pretty . . . but not feminine. I used to cry myself to sleep . . . no man will ever want me. You know, I know about the women Will has been with. They all have big breasts, right? Will: Yes, that’s true, but I don’t know why. I love your breasts . . . they are small, but I love them. Therapist: Both of you have taken risks today. Both of you should feel proud. [I emphasize this word in the session.] Look what you’ve accomplished. Decoding the Session’s Projective Identification (By an Analysis of the Collateral Countertransference) I now review the vignette in an attempt to decode, by my induced countertransference feelings, the projective mechanisms present in this couple’s communications. I hope to demonstrate, even before their open acknowledgment of a “sexual collusion,” the subtle encouragement of infidelity through triangulation. However, it should be remembered that while Will and Becky’s mutual projective identification, intensified to the point of collusive infidelity, is the focal point of this paper and therefore of the vignette presented here, the projective communications of each member of this couple (as well as of the therapist) must always be addressed therapeutically, not only with regard to the collusive dimension. That is, although the use of concomitant projective identification in this couple had reached the level of a collusive triangulation, this does not negate that fact that there are other, individual psychopathologies operative within each member of the couple and within the therapist. The session begins with the material taking a somewhat different path than the previous meetings. To review, this couple

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came to therapy because the husband, Will, has a history of affairs, most brief encounters. Each relationship has ended because Will has gotten caught by Becky. However, in today’s meeting, Becky introduces a complaint not about Will’s betraying her (a topic that had dominated the first eight sessions), but instead about Will being betrayed by a close friend. I am at first bewildered by this turn of events, but I also have a kind of déjà vu experience that I have heard Becky say something like this before. While Becky is still lodging a complaint, it is now against a different kind of outsider to the marriage. I do have the vague sense that now Becky is trying to unite herself with Will (in effect, “We are close because we have a common enemy, our friend Marty”) but the material is confusing enough that I ask not about the issue being discussed (Marty) but instead about a possible connection to all of the previous session material regarding Will’s affairs. This is unusual for me, as I tend to follow the session material, particularly early in the hour, in the order that it is presented. In retrospect, I believe that I was also concerned that Becky’s comments were directed at another outsider, that is, me. By directing the material back to the original triangle, I was protecting myself by saying, in effect, “Listen here, just one triangle at a time, and leave me out of it!” I also began to recognize, at some level, that I was beginning to see Becky as an angry, volatile, and less than sympathetic figure—not simply a spurned lover, but also an explosive one. In my history, I have been both phobic and counterphobic when it comes to angry women. In this instance, I believe that I was beginning to choose both the former and the latter defensive postures. Directing the material to the transference, that is, that I am the “betraying outsider,” not only seemed dangerous (something valuable for the future . . . if there were to be a future) but it felt premature. Staying with Becky’s anger at Will’s friend seemed to me to be unproductive (a displacement, at best). Thus, I chose instead to pursue the confusing nature of Becky’s communication, by pointing out the contrast between this material and the previous sessions. I was guessing that something important was being communicated to Will and me, on a number of conscious

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and unconscious levels, and I was also guessing that by leaving the issue of Will’s friend, I was not going to make Becky very happy. I also wondered about the déjà vu experience that I was having (that is, I had begun to have a vague recognition that Becky had presented similar opportunities to pursue this kind of material in the first eight sessions, but for reasons that I was not aware of at that time, I had ignored them). What did all this mean? As predicted, my pursuing the question of any possible connection between Becky’s interest in their friend’s betrayal, and in her own sense of betrayal, made Becky uncomfortable. She pressed this point by telling me that I was stepping into somewhat dangerous territory (e.g., her use of the formal term, sternly said, “my husband”) and by complaining that I was being insensitive (“I don’t like to hear my husband complaining”). As I persisted, Becky displaced her growing annoyance at me onto a condemnation of their friend (“Marty is a liar”), but she also presented us with an opening into what seemed like an important issue for the marital relationship: “You can see him [Marty] if you want, but not with me [emphasis added]. He’s not loyal . . . he’s a user.” Now the entire range of feelings that I had been experiencing began to make sense to me (“… she is becoming impatient with me, actually a bit angry and attempting to stifle expressing it…. I am feeling a sense of dread. I have a dawning feeling that I will soon be dismissed…fired, by Becky. This kind of thing has happened to me before. Is she so angry because I have persisted in questioning her and thus I am encouraging…no, forcing a discussion about the totality of this couple’s extra-­marital relations? In Becky’s plan for our session, I was supposed to join her in a condemnation of Will’s friend, Marty, just as I was supposed to join her in a continuing condemnation of Will’s most recent affair, and in a condemnation of him”). I now understood that by projective identification I was containing Becky’s dread of abandonment by Will as well as her fear that I would uncover her way of containing and acting out this dread (that is, by encouraging Will to loan himself out to devalued others and then return to her). I also understood that I was also being pulled into a discussion of one kind of triangle (Becky, Will, and Marty) instead of

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another kind (Becky, Will, and the affair) or an even more disturbing triangle for us (Becky, Will, and me). This seemed to me to be a way for Becky to get Becky closer to Will, and also a way for Becky to filibuster more dangerous content in the session. Processing all of these thoughts and feelings brought me enough clarity to make my first intervention: “Only you love Will. Only you are loyal to Will. He should never leave you, because everyone in the outside world will hurt him.” My comments had a very powerful effect: “Drop dead. You are twisting my words.” Yet, and I was surprised to see it, Becky’s anger, when it emerged, did not feel toxic to me (I had expected otherwise), and I now felt much more sympathetic to her. In fact, I thought that Becky’s reference to Marty (“Marty has hurt Will over and over”) was also about her own sense of betrayal and hurt by Will, and it softened her to me. I now believed that Becky was employing the defense of reversal to make Will into the “betrayed one,” instead of her. I also believed that by the defense of projective identification, Becky was attempting to induce a protective response from me. That is, she was trying to get me to protect her from the part of herself that had a compulsive need to triangulate relationships, and thereby continually push Will away from her. Moreover, I reasoned that Becky was beginning to become conscious of how she has encouraged Will to have outside sexual relationships because she feels that she is deficient as both a sexual mate and as a love object. That is, at some preconscious level, it seemed to me that Becky was becoming aware that she was colluding with Will in his having affairs, and that this was a way of life that kept blowing up in their faces. Becky’s response (“I think that I don’t know how to love, but I do love Will. Yes, it’s true. . . I’m the only one who really loves him”) was touching, and it encouraged me to attempt to accomplish even more, both by reassuring her about her ability to love (I believe that it was premature for me to do this) and also by my working to bring Will into the discussion. Will’s response was to turn Becky’s talk of love and her insecurity about her ability to love into a quip about killing. I was surprised that Will was so angry and/or flippant here (both in content and in process), and I could only imagine that

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he was in a powerful, negative parental transference to both Becky and to me. It was in this context that I then quickly moved the discussion to talk of Will’s childhood history, instead of my staying with the manifest content. It was more likely that what Will was actually experiencing was rage and disgust at Becky for her acknowledging that she was trying to incite him against his friend, and for her even acknowledging, at some level, some culpability regarding his infidelities, so, my moving to a discussion of his history was an error. When I realized my error, I refocused my questions (“So, what does an affair mean for the two of you?”). This change of mine prompted a change in the material that emerged. What followed was extremely important information regarding both Will and Becky’s sexual insecurities, Will’s struggles with dependency and merger, and his negative mother transference to Becky, as well as Becky’s deep sense of sexual deficiency and unlovability. In this regard, I believe that my countertransference reaction (I have begun to feel guilty and ashamed . . . almost as if my asking questions is something bad and/or shameful, or even disgusting) was overdetermined, that it was some combination of countertransference feelings being induced by projective identification (Becky’s bad, shameful, and self-­disgusted feelings) as well as an objective countertransference,(Spotnitz, 1976) that can occur when a couples therapist is hearing intimate details of a couple’s private life. Sometimes the therapist can feel like a voyeur, as though he or she is doing and seeing shameful things. I was also aware, and surprised, that I was not having powerful emotional reactions to Will. (However, I was never sure if the dread that I had experienced was partly coming from some deep part of Will. When one gaslights one’s mate for so much of the time, one exists in a world of guilt, shame, and/or dread—even a phallic narcissist or an antisocial personality feels this somewhere.) Yet it is also true that throughout their marriage, Will (with the subtle collusion of Becky) had acted out his feelings through infidelity instead of actually feeling them. Ultimately, I do know that the most effective way to help Will and Becky, and to help any couple who communicates so much about their relationship by projective identification, is for the

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therapist to be as open to himself or herself as possible. I was now aware of my guilt, shame, and disgust; worked hard to contain it; and listened as both Will and Becky were able to go very deeply into some of the causes of their lack of sexual and emotional intimacy. My response (“Both of you have taken risks today. Both of you should feel proud. Look what you’ve accomplished”) was the result of my processing the experiences that had just occurred. I was cognizant of the affects of guilt, shame, and disgust, which had been at least partially induced in me, and my next comments (which contained the words of praise, proud, look, and accomplished) were delivered with this in mind. We had experienced a lot, even touching on some of the basic dynamics that have kept this couple away from each other, dynamics that have helped to propel them into collusive triangulations. That said, this couple, like many, has spent their much of their relationship working hard to triangulate their marriage with collusive infidelity. While they are beginning to see what they have done, it is only a beginning. For the couple, I hope that they can continue on the positive course that they have started. For the reader, I hope that I have been able demonstrate a couple’s “collusion,” that is, the encouragement of infidelity through projective processes. As I revisited this work I noticed that on a several occasions I avoided one kind of content in favor of another. While in every session there is a continual sorting process, and the therapist makes decisions throughout the meeting about which material to pursue, which to ignore, and when (albeit rarely) to actively move the couple away from an interaction, in the session that I have just presented, this “moving-­away dynamic” was an important source of defensive activity on my part. I now believe that, by projective identification, what was occurring was a parallel enactment. That is, I believe that I was reacting to this couple’s inciting me. The primary defensive activity that this couple shares is an avoidance of intimacy through collusive affairs; collaterally, my defensive avoidance seems to have operated in parallel to theirs. I have said elsewhere (Mendelsohn, 2012) that parallel process in the therapist is essentially a countertransference enactment that is the result of a couple’s projective mechanisms. I have also said that this

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parallel process is always an interaction between the couple’s dynamics and the therapist’s character structure (Billow & Mendelsohn, 1990). With this in mind, it no surprise to me that my defensive activity with Will and Becky, as with many similar couples, was primarily phobic-­avoidant, (and sometimes counterphobic). Theoretical Discussion

I have attempted to demonstrate the role of projective identification in the unconscious collusion dynamics of a marriedcouple. I have also tried to show how to use countertransference data induced by them to inform and direct the work of a couple recovering from the results of a “collusive” affair. To do so I have presented a vignette that shows the ways that projective defensive processes operate in the couple to encourage triangular relationships. The session highlights some of the special challenges that arise in work with a couple where at least one member (at first glance, only the husband) is using affairs to adjust to dissatisfactions within himself (or herself) and in the marriage. When one or both members of a couple are acting out in this way, there is at least the presumption of a belief in the magic of action to solve emotional problems and also the presumption that the “cheater” is splitting: Projecting bad-­object representations onto the spouse while projecting good-­object representations onto the paramour. Furthermore, with this kind of “collusive couple” we see that one or both are employing projective mechanisms to incite triangular relationships. Collusive infidelity, occurring through projective identification, fills a gap between the current, psychoanalytic understanding of infidelity which, while focusing on the important unconscious dynamics of the “cheater’ individually, tends to ignore the important role of the couple-­as-­a-­system. However, while family systems, cognitive, and structural understandings each address the dyadic couple within the context of a troubled system, these approaches ignore the important role of the couple’s unconscious processes. Thus, without the merger of both psychoanalytic and systems

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approaches, we are left with a psychoanalytic understanding of the extramarital affair (Josephs, 2006; Steiner, 1996) that focuses only on unconscious conflicts within the “cheater” without a parallel focus on the “cheated-­upon.” In this regard, Josephs (2006) proposes that infidelity is most often rooted in an “oedipal fixation”; that is, the “cheater” unconsciously desires the excitement and/or hostility engendered in an illicit relationship, which in some way represents a reenactment of the forbidden oedipal triangle. Joseph goes on to suggest that this infidelity may also involve a splitting of the desired parent of childhood into faithful and unfaithful parts, displacement of hostility on to the rival childhood parent, and identification with the desired but unfaithful parent, resulting in the impulse to infidelity. Nowhere is there a discussion of the role of the mate-­victim in this analysis. As Scharff and Scharff (2003) suggest, the field of family therapy (where most couples therapy occurs) has largely evolved in distinction to psychoanalysis, depending on cognitive-­behavioral, systemic, and structural techniques to effect symptom change. While therapists from these groups agree that infidelity occurs within a dyadic system, they ignore unconscious conflicts in both members of the couple, tend to view affect as a manipulation, and believe that insight is unnecessary for change (Smith-­ Acuna, 2011). Yet even in their systems models, the “cheater” still takes on the role of the “identified patient” for a number of reasons (Smith-­Acuna, 2011). Even if a therapist does acknowledge some role for the betrayed mate in the “cheating” system, no model can specify the actual conscious and unconscious mechanism(s) involved in how a this mate is involved as part of a “cheating couple.” That is, no theory has been able to describe exactly what processes underlie the double-­message communications where infidelity enactments occur. The defense mechanism of projective identification can help us understand the complex ways in which one member of a couple may encourage consciously denied, disowned, and unwanted fantasy/affect constellations in an intimate other, even going as far as to covertly encourage the partner to act out sexually. With Will and Becky, her dread of abandonment as well as her fear and dread of her own sexual deficiency had her encouraging Will to

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loan himself out to others and then return to her. Yet Becky was viewed by both members of the couple as the “victim” (she was) and Will was viewed as the perpetrator (yet in a certain sense he was also a “victim”). These role assignments offered temporary benefits to the marriage. With this kind of relationship, Becky’s role was to condemn a guilty and ashamed Will, who, through true grit and willpower (no pun intended) needed for some period of time to stay away from the temptation of infidelity relationships. In the long run, of course, this path does not work, as both Will and Becky remained love-­starved and dissatisfied, and so the cycle of infidelity would begin again and again. Despite their expressed concerns, neither Will nor Becky wanted to know the truth of the life they live. If they had wanted to know the truth, then both of them would have long ago given up their collusive triangulations. What Becky wanted was to be able, by projective mechanisms, to blame Will for all that is wrong (deficient) in her own self as well as all that is wrong with Will and their marriage. What Will wanted was to be forgiven so that he could convince himself that all was now well and that there would be no more unsatisfied longing that forced him into compromising positions. Any attempt to get to this “real truth,” for them, was going to result in resistance, and in their feeling impatience and anger at the therapist for causing them pain. However, by understanding and refocusing on this couple’s projective defenses, we can also see that each member was pushing and pulling the other into regressive fantasy/affect constellations, and bringing each of them into “all bad” split-­off ego states (Will as the all-­bad “cheater” and Becky as the all-­bad “frigid” wife). Only through a focus on this couple’s enactments were we then able to see how they have “worked together” to collude in infidelity triangles, and how destructive this has always been for their relationship. Ironically, one result (as often occurs whenever transferences are getting worked through) is that Will and Becky began to see each other more empathically, and became tender and loving in the process. This was a hopeful sign. Berkowitz (1999) suggests that the couples therapist makes “compromises between what arises from within each person and the adoption of the role relationship that is being unconsciously

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assigned to him or her by the other” (p. 561). Interpretation of the interplay between the partner-­to-­partner transferences and the adaptive reactions that they provoke can lead to mutually enhancing cycles and a specific kind of what Berkowitz calls “reparative empathy.” This notion of reparative empathy is particularly important in a marriage that is struggling with distortion, dysfunction, and misunderstanding. Berkowitz cites as an example a couple where one spouse’s tendency to be self-­sufficient and counterdependent evoked for her husband his childhood experience of not mattering to a rejecting and neglectful parent. When their mutual influence of interweaving adaptations was interpreted, the husband could begin to understand why his wife needed to maintain her “self-­sufficiency” defense, and he could begin to see her vulnerable side, the little girl underneath the counterdependent and pseudo-­self-­sufficient exterior. His wife, in turn, could begin to empathize with her spouse as the small boy who was fighting to preserve his autonomy rather than merely resisting her. Berkowitz does not speak directly about the use of countertransference induced by projective identification, but the description of the processes that occur seems very much like what we have seen in the work with Will and Becky. I would add to the Berkowitz description that couple communication (even with couples in the normal/neurotic range; Mendelsohn, 2009) is infused with projective mechanisms (which are unconscious). Therefore, to achieve the results that Berkowitz encourages, a focus on the couple’s unconscious projective defenses would appear to be the most reliable and valid approach. Integrating the Concept of Collusive Infidelity in Treating Couples after an Affair

My goal has been to demonstrate how to use countertransference data induced by projective identification to inform and direct the work of a couple recovering from the results of a collusive extramarital affair. However, many marriages never recover from an infidelity, while others repeat the cycle of cheating, getting caught, and trying again (in vain) to repair their relationship.

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There are certainly many reasons why a marriage might not recover and/or might continue along a destructive cycle of infidelity. However, one reason that often goes unacknowledged is that in some marriages the partners both (unconsciously) share a sense of guilt and shame about it. In other words, how does one learn helpful lessons from a collusive affair if the lessons are partly unconscious and also suggest unwelcome truths about both spouses? I contend that the learning must include learning about the unconscious dynamics that have driven both the “cheater” and the “cheated” into a collusive enactment? Over the years, when counseling a couple after an affair, I would oftentimes say that if they do the repair part of their relationship right, their affair might someday come to be seen as having been a kind of “wake-­up call” for their marriage. What I thought I meant by this neat little phrase was that something had been very wrong with the marriage, and that it needed to change. In that context, the affair might have actually helped the couple to wake up and change their relationship. However, before I fully recognized the role of projective identification as a dynamic in some marital breaches, my version of the wake-­up call metaphor centered on (a) that the betrayed needed to heal, (b) that the betrayer had not made his or her needs known to the betrayed, and (c) that instead of the betrayer attempting to work on the marital problems, he or she had acted out destructively. I was not wrong with this formulation, yet to me it always felt that I was missing something vital in my “wake-­up call” metaphor. Now I recognize that the metaphor was accurate but incomplete. At best, I was viewing the victim of the infidelity as enabler, not as colluder. Without unpacking the dynamics of a collusive triangulation for both members of a couple, one danger is that there may be a temptation to return to infidelity, or an inability to recover from the devastating effects of the affair. That is, unless the inciting conditions in the marital dyad can be understood and worked through, the couple remains in danger, yet because of the delicate nature of the shared responsibility involved in these situations, one must do this with tact as well as with honesty. In other words, focusing on the couple’s shared dynamics helps to protect the “cheated upon” spouse from feeling that the therapist is blam-

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ing the victim while, at the same time, helping the “cheating” spouse to understand many of the inciting causes of the marital indiscretion. Family systems theorists typically call a couple’s “affect” manipulative, and therefore they tend to ignore powerful expressions of feeling during the couple’s sessions as the marital partners attempt to recover from an affair. While a psychoanalytically trained person might at first find such a notion (“affects are useless because they are manipulations”) ridiculous, in fact, at some level these family systems theorists are onto something—although not in the way that they think. What I mean by this is that affective manipulations typically do occur within a couple’s session (as they do within all of the couple’s interactions). But these affective manipulations occur by means of the operation of the defense of projective identification, which is unconscious. In this defense, fantasy/affect constellations are being transmitted from one member of the couple to the other. Moreover, in the couple sessions, the manipulations of a couple in the throes of distress not only affect each other, they also affect the therapist in any number of ways, both subtle and obvious. Powerful fantasies and emotions can distract the therapist from the true focus of the therapeutic work: addressing the couple’s maladaptive interpersonal patterns. For example, in the midst of playing out their repetitive conflicts centered around the betrayed and the betrayer, each of the partners attempting to recover from an infidelity often try to enlist the therapist to their side, demanding that he or she become an arbiter of truth, or to use him or her as a pawn (most often unconsciously). In other words, family systems theorists are essentially correct about the danger of affect-­as-­manipulation, but only on a superficial level; manipulations do occur, but they are manipulations that come from projective identification, and therefore they are by definition unconscious. Without an awareness of the vicissitudes of the couple’s projective defenses and some sense of which communications from the couple may be subtle, unconscious manipulations, a therapist can easily be pulled into siding with one member over the other. To do so is to reinforce the couple’s old, scripted story by playing into it.

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Zeitner (2003), for example, suggests that it is not uncommon in this type of situation (that is, the situation of a marital breach that is the result of an infidelity) for some analysts to make interpretations about the identified patient’s (here it would be the “betrayer’s”) difficulties while the partner is encouraged, and sometimes explicitly advised, on how to manage the “cheater’s” symptoms and characterological problems. Dicks (1967) notes that with more disturbed couples (and I would add to this, couples under extreme marital tension, such as those struggling with infidelity), both members are so overwhelmed by their hateful parts (and overwhelmed by their deep disappointment and fear of loss) that their hate is liable to be split off and projected onto the marital partner. When both members of a couple feel desperate and determined to make the other hold the unacceptable parts of the marriage, it is difficult to have each see the other’s point of view. However, this “taking the other spouse’s perspective” is an important skill for a couple as well as for their therapist, particularly in moments where one needs to look more deeply into the psychodynamics of their troubled marriage. Couples often fall into patterns in which each is left holding a complementary piece of the couple’s hated parts (Mendelsohn, 2011). So, for our present purposes, the wife may routinely insist that her husband own the “cheating, can’t be trusted, he betrayed me” piece, while her husband demands she accept the “deadened, asexual, victim of the cheater” piece. These characteristic roles may lead to repetitive arguments that feel almost scripted. These scripts can exert a powerful pull on the couple. When such a couple comes to therapy, the therapist may suddenly find himself or herself whirling in a sea of confusion as these well-­worn patterns are triggered: Without warning, the couple may seem to have left the room and be arguing about another reality entirely—a kind of mutual “gaslight”—one that the therapist cannot explore without sounding morally corrupt or heartless. Yet as Mitchell (2002) has shown us, things in a marriage are much more complicated. While not speaking specifically about the unconscious encouragement of infidelity, Mitchell has dem-

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onstrated just how couples often collude into seeing their partner as deadened and asexual when this is often far from true. Because each member of the couple depends on the other so much, for so many things, a couple may deaden their passion so that they can minimize any potential loss if the relationship should shatter. When we add that this kind of couple can then collude to send one mate off to find adventure in the arms of another, and that the other member will then have been positioned in the marriage to stay home as the “victim,” we see a marriage that is in jeopardy, and a couples therapy with resistances that can be hard to penetrate and change. As I have said in another context (Mendelsohn, 2011) the most difficult problem for the psychoanalytic clinician in work with a couple is the experience of complementary countertransference toward one member, which remains out of awareness for the therapist. The term complementary countertransference was originated by Racker (1968), who differentiated between two categories of countertransference: concordant and complementary. The former refers to the therapist’s empathic response to what the patient had felt in relation to an early object, while the latter is the therapist’s unempathic response to what the object (parent) had felt toward the patient as a child. The therapist who feels complementary countertransference toward one member may react like a condemning parent toward that member, thereby taking sides in the couple’s fight, and colluding with them in their bid to remain ill and perpetuate their repetitive collusive triangulations. As Zeitner (2003) notes, the ability to tolerate powerful affect—both in a couple and in oneself—is a necessary prerequisite for effective couples therapy. He writes that a frequent presentation in couples therapy is “the dyad that fulminates with anger and blame” (p. 359) and “requires that the analyst tolerate intense affect in the therapeutic field as . . . primitive needs, wishes, and various responses are demonstrated” (p. 360). Certainly, this presentation is even more common in very disturbed couples, or in less disturbed couples struggling to recover from an infidelity. It is the therapist’s ability to contain and tolerate their intense affect, by remaining aware of the couple’s projective dynamics, that

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can help him or her to avoid acting out a complementary countertransference reaction. Conclusion: Blame, Understanding, and Empathy

Berkowitz (1999) suggests that effective psychoanalytic couples therapy starts by establishing a reparative empathy. However, reparative empathy is a challenge when the issue is infidelity. In the more typical couples therapy scenario of an infidelity, the “cheater” is marginalized in the marriage and the “cheated upon” has the option to play the blame game. Like scratching an itch until it bleeds, this can be very satisfying in the short run, but futile for the long run of the marriage. However, what alternative is there but to condemn a marital partner who has committed a moral transgression against his or her mate? Understanding the role of collusive triangulation is one alternative that may help to move a couple away from the blaming-­the-­“cheater” solution, to a reparative empathy. That is, understanding a couple’s collusive processes can be a remedy to the easy but mindless and counterproductive approach of simply blaming and condemning. It is difficult to have reparative empathy in an atmosphere of blame and recrimination, yet it also hard to have empathy when there is so much hurt and betrayal. It is important to remember that a therapy which focuses on the collusive nature of an infidelity needs to be done with skill, tact, and respect for the very real wounds that have occurred to the “victim” and to the marriage. Collusive Infidelity Bridges the Gap between Cognitive, Structural, and Systems Approaches and the Psychodynamic Approach to Couples

Psychic determinism suggests that mental life has unconscious causes that can be analyzed and understood. Our belief in unconscious processes helps us to change the illogical and counterintuitive into the psychological and understandable. I have suggested that the blame game typical of couples therapy in the aftermath of an infidelity can perpetuate a sadomasochistic cycle of blame,

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attempts at repair that ultimately fail, and more infidelity. Understanding the unconscious collusive nature of a couple’s infidelity can help to deepen empathy from the therapist to the couple and from the couple toward each other and toward their marriage. These unconscious dynamics are best seen by assessing the couple’s projective identification, with a collateral focus on the therapist’s countertransference. In contradistinction, the cognitive, structural, and systems approaches to couple therapy focus on manifest content communications alone. As a result, these nonanalytic clinicians will inevitably miss the sometimes subtle, covert pushes and pulls of unconscious collusive triangulation. The blame game is then the most likely result. Thus, our focus on the couple’s unconscious defensive systems as well as on the therapist’s countertransference distinguish our psychoanalytic treatment approach from the nonpsychoanalytic cognitive, structural, and systems theory approaches to couple therapy. Finally, as I have suggested earlier, the focus of this paper has been on a couple’s mutual projective identification intensified to the point of collusive infidelity, and thus the collusive dimension is what has been emphasized here. However, all of the projective communications of each member of the couple (as well as all of the projective communications of the therapist) need to also be addressed therapeutically throughout the work with every couple. In this case, the couple’s prominent collusive dimension does not in any way negate their own individual psychopathologies or the psychopathology of their therapist. Nowhere are the emotional issues more heightened and the marital tensions greater than with the hurt, bewilderment, and anger generated by an infidelity. Focusing on the enactments that occur in the marital dyad makes it possible for each member of the couple, and for the therapist, to see all of the participants in the therapeutic triangle as more human than otherwise.

NOTES

1. Gaslight is the name of a 1944 mystery movie. An opera singer has been murdered. The perpetrator bolted, without the jewels he sought. Paula, the vic-

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tim’s niece, meets Gregory and soon falls in love with him. She marries him and he convinces her that they should live in her aunt’s townhouse. To calm her anxieties, he suggests they store all of her aunt’s furnishings in the attic. Soon, things take a turn for the bizarre. Paula hears footsteps coming from above her, in the sealed attic, and sees the gaslights go dim and brighten, for no apparent reason. Gregory suggests that these are all figments of Paula’s imagination. Unknown to Paula, her husband is her aunt’s murderer. His aim has been to get back into the house to continue searching for the jewels. He has been secretly rummaging through the attic to find the jewels he is certain are there. Gregory does everything in his power to convince his wife that she is going mad. After she is certified insane and institutionalized, he can search without impediment for the jewels. The footsteps she hears in the attic are his, and the flickering gaslights he claims she has imagined are in reality caused by him turning the attic lights on, reducing the flow of gas to the downstairs lights. Thus, the verb “to gaslight” has entered into our vocabulary to mean “to terrify and confuse somebody else to the extent that the victim questions his or her own sanity.” Based on our psychoanalytic understanding of this movie and the expression it has offered us, we might want to amend this to suggest the following: The marital partner who would say, “Don’t gaslight me,” would be more precise if he or she said: “Don’t ‘projective identification’ me.” 2. As Menninger (1958) has suggested, it is very difficult for a person who has not studied unconscious functioning to understand the concept of overdetermination. (The example that Menninger gives is that of the analyst who links a patient’s headache to a visit from his mother-­in-­law, and following this, the patient believes that the headache was caused by the mother-­in-­law.) It is an even more delicate matter when the topic of overdetermination concerns the issue of potential blame for a marriage-­destructive acting-­out, and a major defensive operation that the couple employs is projective identification. It also true in at least some cases that the victim of the cheater was originally a passive victim (or even an enabler, not a colluder)—that is, he or she did not originally encourage a triangular relationship which included a “cheating partner.” However, at this point in their relationship the “victim” has found a way to achieve mastery by actually helping to orchestrate, or at the least encourage, a cheating relationship in the spouse. (In this regard, some “victims” need to know every gory detail of the “cheater’s” behavior, while others want to know nothing at all. Is this wanting-­to-­know an attempt at mastery or a vicarious identification, or is it both?) One advantage of this mastery-­by-­reversal is that one can shift the power aspects of the transaction so that one is in the initiating rather than in the responding role. However, this reversal is self-­ and other-­destructive when the situation to be reversed is intrinsically negative (such as an infidelity). Weiss and Sampson (1986) call this a passive-­into active-­transformation. 3. I have made this point previously in a similar context (Mendelsohn, 2011). 4. Things can be even more problematic when the “victim” is in fact quite disturbed. The cheater’s infidelity, while still a moral transgression, often functions as a kind of screen to hide the mate’s disturbance. While I have talked previously (Mendelsohn, 2011) about marriages where both spouses are very

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troubled and where there is a good deal of acting out by both, I have not discussed a marriage where the “victim” is not only colluding, but also using the infidelity to escape deeper scrutiny of his or her own serious emotional problems. A look at the case of “Denise” and “Kevin,” presented earlier, might offer us a look into this kind of marital relationship.

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Weiss, J., & Sampson, H. (1986). The psychoanalytic process: Theory, clinical observations, and empirical research. New York: Guilford Press. Zeitner, R. M. (2003). Obstacles for the psychoanalyst in the practice of couple therapy. Psychoanal. Psychology, 20:348–362.

Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies Adelphi University Garden City, NY 11530 E-­mail: [email protected]

The Psychoanalytic Review Vol. 101, No. 4, August 2014

"Collusive infidelity," projective identification, and clinical technique.

The author presents the concept of "collusive infidelity" and the role of projective identification as ubiquitous in the unconscious encouragement of ...
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