Edna, 28, and Steve, 30, had been living together for two years when they requested couples therapy. In appearance Edna was dressed immaculately, while Steve looked disheveled. Their fights, not surprisingly, focused on his slovenly appearance and sloppy household habits, and on her fastidious behavior and frivolous patterns of spending money. Theirs had been an intense, dramatic relationship.

In the beginning they had met and fallen in love on a blind date. Now, two years later, they described a highly conflictual relationship with serious communication problems. An initial session began as follows:

Edna: Again, you left two days' worth of cruddy dishes all over the living room floor for me to trip over! And your farting is getting worse! I can't stand it any longer!

Steve: If you hadn't bought those new chairs without asking me, maybe I wouldn't create such a mess. You were just trying to get even!

During the worst of their fights at home, Steve and Edna would slam doors, throw dishes, and spit at each other. In the initial therapy sessions, given the slightest opportunity they would bicker childishly without listening to one another. On two occasions Edna became so angry that she marched out of the room, throwing a pillow rudely at Steve on her way out of the door.

What is it, after all, that compels adults such as Steve and Edna, who have all the best intentions, to regress to childlike behaviors where spitting becomes a means of communication? How does a developmental model of couplehood relate to Steve and Edna? We have found that particular aspects of childhood development will influence an adult's capacity to create a successful relationship. Understanding these aspects allows us to identify each partner's current stage, which in turn identifies the overall pattern of behavior within the relationship as a unit.

Developmental theory addresses growth as a complex process. When early biologists studied the structure of plants and animals, they discovered growth to be a process of transformation. Cells divide and group themselves into new forms with new functions, and development involves progression through successive stages. These stages are successively more complex at each level of growth. In fact, each successive stage is based on a preceding stage and represents a transformation of the earlier stage into a more complex form. This same process of biological organisms evolving into increasingly forms also occurs in the psychological development of human beings. Freud, Erickson, and Piaget each contributed to the process of shifting the focus of developmental thinking from the biologically oriented sciences into the cognitive, social, and intrapsychic areas of individual human functioning.

Loevinger (1966) has provided a clear summary of the main features of a developmental model:

1. There is an invariable order to the stages of development.
2. No stage can be skipped.
3. Each stage is more complex than the preceding one, representing a transformation of what existed previously into a new form.
4. Each stage is based on the preceding one and prepares for the succeeding one. (cited in Breger, 1974, p. 9)

Couples like Edna and Steve get stuck in the first stage of development. They compete to get their needs met and don’t know how to give and receive generously. They represent low levels of differentiation, minimal object constancy and histories of trauma that are often re-enacted.

To work successfully with these clients takes an ability to understand emotional triggering and incorporate self-soothing techniques into couples work.

In our book, In Quest of the Mythical Mate, and in our training programs, we demonstrate couples at all the different stages and then identify the emotional capacities that are lacking in order for development to proceed successfully.  We show how the influences of childhood enhance or inhibit an individual's ability to progress through the normal stages of growth. When you use this lens, your work will become much more targeted and you will no longer “fly by the seat of your pants.”

Stepping Stones to Intimacy is also a valuable client resource that normalizes where and how couples get stuck. This handout describes the normal stages from Symbiosis to Synergy in terms your clients will understand.