Splitting Up: Enmeshment and Estrangement in the Process of Divorce - Hardcover

Pam, Alvin; Pearson, Judith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1572303670 ISBN 13: 9781572303676

Publisher: The Guilford Press, 1998

Synopsis

This thoroughly researched volume examines the emotional process of divorce, from the characterological struggle that leads to the breakup through the difficult adjustments that come after the marriage is over. Illustrated throughout with evocative case examples, the book explores why marriages fail, the feelings and reactions of both the rejecting and rejected partners, the psychodynamics of jealousy, the possibility of reconciliation, and the impact of divorce on children. Psychological and cultural perspectives are combined to provide valuable conceptual and clinical insights for professionals working with individuals and families in crisis.

About this title

About the Author

Alvin Pam, PhD, is Principal Psychologist at Bronx Psychiatric Center and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also in private practice in Bronx, New York.

Judith Pearson, PhD, is an associate faculty member of the Masterson Institute in New York City. She has worked as a supervising psychologist at Bronx Psychiatric Center and was Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is in private practice in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface
Prologue: The Argument of the Book
I. The Couple in Separation
Introduction
1. Why Can't They Be Civilized?
2. Dynamics of the Couple-System
3. The Countersymbiant Partner
4. The Symbiant Mate
5. Leaving
II. Jealousy
Introduction
6. Infidelity vs. Jealousy: Social History of a Dialectic
7. Geometry of the Eternal Triangle
8. The Defilement Taboo: Jealousy's Legacy
III. Catastrophic and Other Severe Reactions to Rejection in Love
Introduction
9. Suicide: In the Shadow of the Object
10. Crimes of Passion
11. Psychosomatic Reactions to Rejection in Love
12. Sexual Dysfunction after Breakup
IV. The Nuclear Family in Fission: Effects on Children
Introduction
13. Children of Divorce in the New American Families
14. How Feasible is "Cooperation where Children Are Concerned"?
15. The Fairy-Tale Divorce for Children
V. Resolution of the Breakup: Letting Go vs. Reconciling
Introduction
16. Love's Labor Lost: Letting Go
17. Reconciliation
VI. Psychological and Social Adjustment
Introduction
18. The Psychotherapy of Marital Breakups
19. The Issue of Guilt

Edition details

• Publisher: The Guilford Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1572303670
• ISBN 13: 9781572303676
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448