The Narcissistic / Borderline Couple

A Psychoanalytic Perspective On Marital Treatment

Joan Lachkar, Ph.D, defines the narcissistic/borderline couple as "individuals who, when they are together, form a shared couple myth that gives rise to many collective fantasies". Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic partners form a parasitic bond characterized by their painful, circular patterns of behavior. The complexities of these relationships and the potential obstacles to effective intervention are also examined. "Follies-a-deux", madness-in-twosome, afflicts many couples when both partners are personality disordered. "Defining the narcissistic/borderline couple as "individuals who, when they are together, form a shared couple myth that gives rise to many collective fantasies," Lachkar explicates the network that underlies this type of relationship and demonstrates how two theoretical constructs--self psychology and object relations--can be integrated to create an effective conjoint treatment of marital pathology".


Joan Lachkar, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family therapist in private practice in California, who teaches psychoanalysis and is the author of The Many Faces of Abuse: Treating the Emotional Abuse of High -Functioning Women and numerous publications on marital and political conflict. She is an affiliate member of the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute, an adjunct professor at Mount Saint Mary's College, a psychohistorian, is on the editorial board of the Journal of Emotional Abuse


# Hardcover: 242 pages
# Publisher: Brunner/Mazel; 2nd edition (2003)
# Language: English
# ISBN-13: 978-0415934718
# ISBN-10: 0415934710