Calimero's story: a trigenerational approach to couples therapy

Abstract

Authors present a couple therapy followed with a trigenerational approach, based on the “couple’s myths”. First they explain the model’s characteristics and define the concept of “myths”. First they explain the model’s characteristics and define the concept of “myth” as a whole of shared beliefs and values which derive from the adaptation between the personal myths that each partner inherits from his/her own family of origen. Then the Authors describe the case example in which three aspects are underlined: the possibility to give a new meaning to the sympton (a wife’s fobic obsessive symptom) in the light of the “couple’s myth”; the exploration of the myth by the use of analogical language (the “couple’s sculptures”); the metaphorical “re-writting” of the couple’s story and problem that allow the couple to construct a new narrative and a new myth (a new mythopoiesis).