Couples and Marriage
Couples and Marriage Therapy
Quick Links:
Books and Articles by Author:
Norman Brown Love and Intimate Relationships
Don Catherall Emotional Safety
Vick Kelly Intimate Notes
Blogs Marriage Blog by Vick Kelly
Training in Affect Script Psychology
Therapists ASP Based Couples/Marriage therapists
Intimate Notes
Vick Kelly, MD
In the late 1980's Tomkins Institute co-founder Vick Kelly began collaborating with Silvan Tomkins to develop a new definition of intimacy based on affect script psychology. Dr. Kelly published this work in a scholarly volume edited by Institute Founding Executive Director Emeritus Don Nathanson. Dr. Kelly's definition of intimacy:
"Intimacy is an interaffective process through which the inmost parts of the self are communicated to the other by tangible displays of affect."
can be found in "Affect and the Redefinition of Intimacy" on page 73 of Knowing Feeling (1996). (This book, as well as many others related to affect script psychology, can be purchased by clicking here and scrolling down.) In that same chapter, Dr. Kelly developed a schema for understanding failures of intimacy based on Tomkins's Central Blueprint of Motivation.
Dr. Kelly also contributed articles about couples and relationships in the former Tomkins Institute journal, The Bulletin of the Tomkins Institute. Two of those articles "Intimate Notes" and "Sometimes It's Right to be Wrong" are available here.
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Love and Intimate Relationships: Journeys of the Heart
Norman Brown with Ellen Amatea
Tomkins Institute member and lecturer Norman Brown with Ellen Amatea co-authored a scholarly textbook titled Love and Intimate Relationships: Journeys of the Heart (2000) that can be purchased by clicking on the title and scrolling down.
This ambitious look at the natural history of relationships from dating to the evolution of interpersonal love is imbued throughout with insights from affect script psychology.
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Emotional Safety: viewing couples through the lens of affect
Don Catherall
Tomkins Institute member and lecturer Don Catherall intertwined affect script psychology with attachment theory to create a model for working with troubled couples. His book, Emotional Safety: viewing couples through the lens of affect can be purchased here by clicking on the title and scrolling down the list of books.
Dr. Catherall's model works well with Johnson's emotionally focused couples model and Hendrix's Imago model, as cognitive-behavioral, insight oriented, object-relations, systemic and other theoretical systems. On page 9 of the book, Dr. Catherall states:
"The primary avenue through which he interprets her view of him and she interprets his view of her is not the language of words, it is the language of affect. It is in the invisible realm of affect that the unresolved conflict is fought. Couples in the danger zone are defensive with each other, quick to interpret each other's feelings and intentions as hostile, critical, or insensitive. The central issue is usually each partner's concern about the relationship itself, the attachment."
Couples Therpists who work from the ASP model
The Tomkins Institute recognizes that there are a wide variety of effective forms of couple's and marital therapy. While the therapists listed below have familiarity with Affect Script Psychology, they each work in their own individual style developed in conjunction with ASP. The Tomkins Institute provides this list as a starting point only for those with an interest or need for couple's or marital therapy. We make no claims as to the efficacy of any specific therapist. Each couple must make that determination on their own.
(Therapist list currently under construction.)
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