Monthly Spotlight June:

Relationship Breakdown and Breakthrough: A Relational Therapeutic View Through a Psychodynamic Lens

Relationship Breakdown and Breakthrough: A Relational Therapeutic View Through a Psychodynamic Lens

Relationship breakdown is rarely caused by one single moment. Sometimes there is an obvious rupture: an affair, a betrayal, a sudden ending, a disclosure, or a repeated injury that can no longer be tolerated. But more often, relationships break down slowly. Something begins to happen in the space between two people. The relationship may still function on the outside, but inside it can start to feel harder to reach one another. There may be less tenderness, less curiosity, less repair. Conversations become more defensive. Silence becomes loaded. Small disagreements begin to carry the weight of years.

And yet, within relationship breakdown, there can sometimes also be the possibility of relationship breakthrough. Not always, and certainly not at any cost. Some relationships are unsafe, coercive, or too damaging to continue. In those situations, the work may be about leaving, recovering, and rebuilding a sense of self. But where there is enough safety, willingness and emotional honesty, a crisis in a relationship can become a moment where something previously hidden becomes visible. The old ways of coping stop working. The relationship reaches a point where something has to be faced. In that sense, breakdown can sometimes become the doorway into deeper truth.

My way of working is relational, pluralistic and integrative, while being informed by a psychodynamic lens. That distinction matters to me. I am not interested in applying theory in a rigid, cold, or overly interpretive way. For some people, a purely psychodynamic approach can feel too exposing, too harsh, or too removed from the reality of what they are living through. I use a psychodynamic lens because it helps us think beneath the surface, but I try to do this in a way that remains human, flexible and compassionate. It helps us ask not only, “What happened?”, but also, “What did this mean?”, “What did it stir up?”, and “Why did this pattern become so powerful?”

From a pluralistic and relational therapeutic position, I do not see relationship breakdown or breakthrough as something that can be understood through one theory alone. Every couple, and every person within a couple, brings their own history, wounds, hopes, fears and ways of protecting themselves. Some relationships are worn down by stress, parenting, money, family pressures, illness, sexual disconnection, grief or loss. Others are shaped by earlier attachment injuries, trauma, shame, dependency, fear of abandonment, or fear of being engulfed. Often, it is not one thing or the other. The practical and the psychological become woven together.

A psychodynamic lens helps us listen for what sits beneath the surface. An argument may appear to be about the washing up, the phone, money, sex, lateness, childcare, or who does more in the home. And of course, those things matter. They are real. But in therapy, I am also interested in what these moments come to mean emotionally. One person may not simply hear, “You forgot to do something.” They may hear, “You do not matter.” Another may not simply experience their partner wanting reassurance. They may feel controlled, trapped, criticised or inadequate. What looks like an ordinary disagreement can carry much deeper emotional meanings.

This is why relationship breakdown can feel so painful and confusing. Two people may be arguing about the present, while each is also responding to older emotional templates. A look, a tone, a withdrawal, a criticism, or a delay in replying can stir feelings that belong partly to the current relationship and partly to earlier experiences of being ignored, shamed, abandoned, controlled or unseen. The past does not simply stay in the past. It can become alive between two people.

Relationship breakthrough begins when these patterns can be thought about rather than simply acted out. Instead of only repeating the same argument, the couple may begin to wonder what the argument is really carrying. Instead of asking, “Who is to blame?”, the work becomes more relational: “What happens between us?” “What do we each do when we feel frightened?” “What are we protecting ourselves from?” “What becomes impossible to say directly?” This does not remove accountability, but it does create a space where meaning can sit alongside responsibility.

Karen Horney’s ideas are useful here. Horney was a psychoanalyst who moved away from some of Freud’s more biologically driven ideas and placed greater emphasis on social, cultural and relational experience. The American Institute for Psychoanalysis has a helpful page about her work here: https://aipnyc.org/who-is-karen-horney/

Horney described the ways people manage anxiety in relationships by moving towards, against, or away from others. I find this a very helpful way of thinking about both relationship breakdown and breakthrough. These movements are usually protective. They are ways of trying to feel safe when something inside feels threatened.

One person may move towards their partner. They may seek closeness, reassurance, conversation, contact and confirmation that the relationship is still secure. When this becomes intense, it can look like neediness or pressure, but underneath there may be fear: “Please do not leave me.” “Please see me.” “Please tell me I still matter.”

Another person may move away. They may withdraw, shut down, become quiet, avoid difficult conversations, work more, go into their phone, or emotionally disappear. This can look cold or uncaring, but underneath there may also be fear: “This is too much.” “I am going to get it wrong.” “I will be swallowed up.” “I cannot bear the criticism.”

A third movement is against the other. This may show itself as criticism, attack, control, sarcasm or superiority. Again, this may be damaging within the relationship, but through a psychodynamic lens we can also understand it as a defence against vulnerability. It may be easier to attack than to say, “I feel hurt,” “I feel unlovable,” or “I am frightened that I am not enough.”

What I find important about Horney’s idea is that these movements are not only couple dynamics. They are also ways that we relate to people in life more generally. We may move towards people when we feel anxious by pleasing, appeasing, over-giving, over-explaining, seeking approval or trying to keep the peace. We may move away by becoming self-contained, detached, avoidant, busy, intellectualised or emotionally unavailable. We may move against by becoming defensive, competitive, controlling, dismissive or critical. These patterns can appear in friendships, families, workplaces, parenting, therapy, supervision, professional relationships and in how we relate to authority.

In individual therapy, Horney’s model can help a person begin to recognise their own relational style. The work is not about blaming themselves for how they relate. It is about becoming curious about what they have had to do in order to feel safe. A client might begin to notice that they move towards others by apologising, rescuing or trying to manage everyone else’s feelings. Another might recognise that they move away when conflict feels too exposing. Another might discover that they move against others when they feel ashamed, small or powerless. In individual work, these patterns can be explored through the client’s current relationships, earlier family dynamics, attachment experiences and, importantly, the therapeutic relationship itself.

This is where using a psychodynamic lens can be especially helpful. The client may not only talk about these movements; they may also live them out in the therapy. A client who moves towards may worry about pleasing the therapist or being a “good client”. A client who moves away may keep the therapist at a distance, intellectualise, minimise feeling, or attend sessions while remaining emotionally unreachable. A client who moves against may test, challenge, dismiss or become critical when vulnerability gets too close. The task is not to shame these defences, but to notice them together. In individual therapy, breakthrough can happen when the client begins to say, “This is what I do when I feel frightened,” rather than simply becoming trapped inside the pattern.

In couples therapy, Horney’s model can help both partners see the cycle between them. One partner’s movement towards may trigger the other’s movement away. One partner’s movement against may lead the other to withdraw, appease or defend. The therapist can help the couple slow the process down and see how each person’s protection may be fuelling the other person’s fear. This can be relieving, because the couple begin to see the relationship as a dynamic system rather than a courtroom where one person has to be guilty and the other innocent. The work becomes less about winning the argument and more about understanding the emotional choreography between them.

In breakdown, these movements often become rigid. The person who moves towards may pursue more desperately. The person who moves away may become more defended. The person who moves against may become harsher, more contemptuous or more controlling. But breakthrough becomes possible when these positions soften. A person may begin to recognise, “When I attack, I am often frightened.” Another may realise, “When I disappear, I leave my partner alone with all the feeling.” Another may say, “When I cling, I am trying to manage an old terror of being left.” These moments can be deeply moving because they shift the relationship from accusation into vulnerability.

In my own therapeutic work, I would want to hold both truths at the same time. We can understand why someone protects themselves in a particular way, while also recognising the impact of that protection on the other person. Understanding is not the same as excusing. A relational therapeutic approach, informed by a psychodynamic lens, does not simply ask, “Who is right?” It asks, “What is happening between you?” “What gets stirred in each of you?” “What do you each do when you feel frightened, ashamed, unwanted or exposed?” It also asks, “Is there enough safety here for something new to happen?”

This is often where couples become caught in painful cycles. One partner pursues because they feel abandoned. The other withdraws because they feel overwhelmed. The withdrawal then confirms the first partner’s fear of abandonment, and the pursuit confirms the second partner’s fear of being engulfed or criticised. Each person experiences themselves as reacting to the other, but both are also participating in a pattern that neither of them may fully understand. The relationship becomes organised around protection rather than connection.

Breakthrough does not mean that the cycle disappears overnight. It often begins with one small moment of recognition. One partner notices the familiar pull to attack but manages to say, “I feel hurt.” Another notices the urge to shut down but manages to say, “I need a moment, but I am not leaving the conversation.” These are not small things. They are relational achievements. They show that the couple is beginning to build a new emotional language.

Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson’s developmental model of couples therapy is also useful here. Bader is co-founder of The Couples Institute and, together with Pearson, developed the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy. You can read more about Bader’s work here: https://www.couplesinstitute.com/ellyn-bader/ and more about the Developmental Model here: https://www.couplesinstitute.com/look-back-developmental-model/

Their model is particularly helpful in thinking about differentiation: the capacity to remain emotionally connected while also allowing each person to be separate, different and real.

In the early stages of a relationship, couples often bond through similarity, hope, idealisation and emotional intensity. Differences may be softened or overlooked. Later, as each person becomes more fully themselves, difference becomes harder to ignore. One partner wants more space; the other wants more closeness. One wants to talk; the other needs time. One values certainty; the other values freedom. One seeks reassurance; the other experiences reassurance as demand.

Bader and Pearson help us think about whether a couple can remain connected while allowing each person to be separate. This is not always easy. For some people, difference feels like rejection. For others, closeness feels like a loss of self. A partner’s independence may feel like abandonment. A partner’s dependency may feel like invasion. The developmental task is to move towards a relationship where two people can say, in effect, “You are not me, and I am not you, but we can still try to meet.” When that capacity breaks down, couples can become stuck in protest, compliance, resentment or withdrawal.

Again, this is not only about romantic relationships. Differentiation is a life task. We are constantly trying to work out how to stay connected to others without losing ourselves, and how to be ourselves without cutting off from others. This happens between parents and children, adult siblings, friends, colleagues, supervisees and supervisors, therapists and clients. It also happens internally, in the way we negotiate our own needs, guilt, loyalty, independence and dependence.

In individual therapy, Bader and Pearson’s ideas can be used to think about a person’s capacity for separateness and connection across their relationships. A client may come to therapy saying they struggle with partners, but the same pattern may also appear with parents, siblings, friends or colleagues. They may find it difficult to say no, to tolerate another person’s disappointment, to disagree without feeling cruel, or to need someone without feeling weak. Individual therapy can help the client develop a stronger sense of self, so that closeness does not require self-abandonment and independence does not require emotional cut-off.

This can be particularly important for people who feel guilty when they set boundaries, or who confuse love with merging. In individual work, differentiation may involve helping the client ask: “What do I feel?” “What do I need?” “What belongs to me and what belongs to the other person?” “Can I stay emotionally present without taking responsibility for everything?” The work is often slow and compassionate, because for many people separateness was not experienced as safe in earlier life. Saying no, disagreeing, wanting something different, or allowing someone else to be upset may feel dangerous, even when it is healthy.

In couples therapy, Bader and Pearson’s model gives a way of understanding where the couple may be developmentally stuck. Some couples struggle to move beyond the early fantasy of sameness. Difference feels like betrayal. Others are caught in a power struggle where each person is trying to be recognised but cannot yet recognise the other. Some couples have become emotionally cut off and need help finding safe contact again. Others may be working towards mutual interdependence: a more mature form of relating where both partners can be separate and connected, honest and caring, boundaried and emotionally available.

In a couples session, this might mean helping the couple tolerate difference without immediately turning it into rejection or attack. One partner might say, “I need time alone,” and the work is to help the other partner hear this as a need for space rather than proof of abandonment. Another might say, “I need more closeness,” and the work is to help the other hear this as a longing for connection rather than control. The therapist helps the couple develop the capacity to stay in contact while recognising that both people have separate minds, needs and histories.

In everyday life, poor differentiation can show itself in many ways. A person may say yes when they mean no because they fear disappointing someone. They may avoid conflict because disagreement feels like abandonment. They may become overly independent because needing others feels humiliating. They may experience another person’s boundary as rejection, or another person’s difference as disloyalty. In this way, the movements described by Horney, and the developmental struggles described by Bader and Pearson, are not just couple therapy ideas. They are ways of understanding human relating more broadly.

Relationship breakthrough often involves a movement towards this kind of differentiation. The couple begins to realise that difference does not have to mean danger. One person can need space without abandoning the other. One person can need closeness without controlling the other. One person can disagree without destroying the bond. This is difficult work, because it requires both people to tolerate anxiety without immediately defending against it.

In therapy, I would often be listening for whether the couple has lost the ability to recognise each other as separate subjects. By this I mean: can each person still imagine that the other has an inner world that makes sense to them? Or has the other become reduced to a role — the selfish one, the needy one, the cold one, the angry one, the irresponsible one? When people are hurt for long enough, they often stop being curious. They no longer ask, “What might be happening for you?” They think they already know. And once curiosity disappears, the relationship can become very lonely.

A breakthrough often begins with the return of curiosity. Not a naïve curiosity that ignores harm, but a more mature curiosity that can say, “I want to understand what happens between us, even if I am angry with you.” This is where repair becomes possible. Repair is not the same as pretending something did not happen. It means something has been named, felt, understood and responded to differently.

A pluralistic therapist also needs to be practical and ethical. Not every relationship should be repaired. Some relationships are unsafe, coercive, chronically neglectful or emotionally damaging. Some people have spent years trying to understand the other person while abandoning themselves. In those cases, the work may not be about saving the relationship, but helping the person recover their sense of reality, boundaries and self-respect. Therapy through a psychodynamic lens should never romanticise suffering. It should not encourage someone to stay simply because there is a pattern to understand.

At the same time, when both people are willing and there is enough safety, relationship breakdown can become an opportunity for deeper understanding. This does not mean blame disappears. It means blame can be joined by meaning. A couple might begin to see that the argument is not only about the thing itself, but about longing, disappointment, fear and unmet need. One partner may begin to say, “When you go quiet, I feel abandoned,” rather than, “You are cold.” The other may begin to say, “When you come towards me with anger, I feel I have already failed,” rather than, “You are too much.” These shifts matter. They are small movements from accusation towards vulnerability.

Relationship breakdown also involves grief. Even when separation is necessary, there is often mourning for what the relationship once was, or what it was hoped it would become. People grieve the imagined future, the routines, the shared home, the family structure, the private jokes, and the version of themselves that existed inside the relationship. They may also grieve the fact that love was not enough, or that love became mixed with hurt, fear and disappointment.

Relationship breakthrough also involves grief, because even when a couple stays together, something may have to be mourned. The old fantasy of the relationship may need to die. The hope that the other person would always know, always soothe, always agree, always rescue, may have to be let go of. In its place, something more real may begin: a relationship between two imperfect people who are trying to understand themselves and each other more honestly.

For some people, the end of a relationship reactivates earlier losses. A breakup can touch childhood experiences of abandonment, parental conflict, emotional neglect, rejection or bereavement. The pain may feel overwhelming not because the person is weak, but because the present loss has opened older wounds. Therapy can help someone gently separate then from now. It can help them understand why this ending hurts in the particular way that it does.

There is often shame too. People may feel they failed, stayed too long, left too late, chose badly, ignored signs, repeated a pattern, or became someone they did not want to be. A relational therapeutic approach tries to meet this shame with care and honesty. Rather than asking, “What is wrong with you?”, therapy asks, “What happened to you in this relationship?” “What did you need?” “What did you learn to tolerate?” “What were you hoping would eventually be repaired?”

In this sense, relationship breakdown is not only an ending. It can also be a revelation. It reveals how we love, how we defend, how we attach, how we protest, how we withdraw, and how we try to protect ourselves from pain. Relationship breakthrough happens when that revelation can be used, not to punish the self or the other, but to deepen understanding and create the possibility of something different.

Drawing on Horney, we can understand the anxious movements towards, against and away from the other. Drawing on Bader and Pearson, we can understand the struggle to differentiate — to remain connected without losing oneself. Together, these ideas help us think about why relationships can become so painful, but also why they can sometimes change. They also remind us that the way we love is often connected to the way we live: how we manage closeness, difference, conflict, dependence, independence, shame and repair in all our relationships.

In individual therapy, these models can help someone understand their own internal world and repeated relational patterns.

In couples therapy, they can help both people understand the living dynamic between them.

One approach looks more closely at how the person has come to relate; the other looks more closely at what happens when two people’s histories, defences and longings meet. Both can be valuable.

Sometimes individual therapy helps a person become more able to enter healthier relationships. Sometimes couples therapy helps two people create a relationship that neither could build alone. Often, both kinds of work speak to one another.

Ultimately, my approach is not about applying theory in a rigid or distant way. It is about using a psychodynamic lens as one part of a wider relational and integrative way of working. Theory can help us understand deeper patterns, but the therapeutic relationship must remain human, responsive and emotionally attuned. Relationship breakdown asks to be understood with honesty. Relationship breakthrough asks to be met with courage. And over time, this kind of work can help a person or couple move towards relationships that are less governed by fear, repetition and defence, and more capable of honesty, separateness, repair and emotional truth.