Working with the Impasse in Couple Relationship while working towards World Peace

Abstract

An `impasse’ is a common human experience. The usual and accompanying feeling of being stuck is experienced by people in a variety of contexts. This thesis comprises personal reflections and is a professional person’s exploration of `impasse’ emerging from the writer’s experience of working with people in a therapeutic context. The beguiling and compulsive nature of impasses is attributed to a mix of mistrust, distorted perceptions, defensiveness against vulnerability and incongruence all of which are described as reactions by the protagonists as they seek to assuage the anxiety of disconnection or the threat of disconnection from the attachment figure. Models from Transactional Analysis are used to provide an analysis of levels of impasse and to describe the dynamics generated by `interlocking’ actions and reactions of the people involved. These models are also applied to the inter-community relationship on Cyprus. Some suggestions are made as to how someone with a counselling perspective may `add value’ to the work of non-governmental facilitators in a peace-making process.