From the idealised beginning to the crash: how do couples relationships breakdown? How does love turn into rage and hate?

Chrissie Pollard interviews ITTMind co-founder and psychotherapist Previn Karian to outline the contours of relationship breakdowns.

Beginning with initial attraction through fantasies of the Other, Karian explains the shock of switching from two individuals to one couple unit. It results in a lack of privacy, the shared space and shared time where there is nowhere to hide. What emerges is the shadow, the hidden parts of ourselves, the unconscious needs we never knew we had, the irrational rage when they are not met, the fallout of power inequalities, the splitting apart of the couple container. Love turns into hate.

Drawing on Carl Jung and Melanie Klein, Karian sees the predictable switch of love into hate (Klein) solved through ending the persecution of the Other. The secret of the couple lies in the mind of the individual, the ability to locate the triggered rage in yourself, to find self-knowledge through self-reflection (Jung), to know your own shadow.

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