Contemporary Perspectives on Relational Wellness: Psychoanalysis and the Modern Family

This book proposes new perspectives on relational wellness and the contemporary family―combining a psychoanalytic overview with scientific research about the burgeoning popularity of divorce, the increase in “stepfamilies,” and the use of social networks as well as other technologies. In this day and age, psychoanalysis has become increasingly interested in hyper-modern scenarios; for example, social networks and apps provide matching algorithms, which allow users to connect with people of similar interests. These networks have become one of the places where dissatisfied partners seek "more satisfactory situations.” In the United Kingdom, cohabitation lasts for up to two years, on average, and 40% of marriages end in divorce. In the United States, the percentage rises: it has now reached 50%. Today the value of temporariness, in which everything is fragmented, is exalted. On the other hand, is it wrong to deny the natural ebb and flow of human feeling? 

Floriana Irtelli is Lecturer in Clinical Psychology and Psychoanalysis at Catholic University of Sacred Hearth, Milan, Italy.