Affairs, Desire, and the Unconscious
CPD Credits
2
Event Type
Recorded Event
Location
Your TR Together account
Standard
£30.00
Trainee/NHS
£25.50
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Affairs, Desire, and the Unconscious

Affairs, Desire, and the Unconscious

A Psychoanalytic Exploration

With Alain de Botton, Juliet Rosenfeld & Susanna Abse

This recording offers psychotherapists an opportunity to explore the unconscious dimensions of infidelity through a psychoanalytic reading of Juliet Rosenfeld’s Affairs, alongside reflections from Alain de Botton and Susanna Abse. The session examines the ways in which transgression, repetition compulsion, unconscious phantasy, and the oedipal drama shape the experience of affairs in both the individual and the couple.

Drawing on Rosenfeld's book Affairs, we consider infidelity as an enactment of unconscious conflict, a working-through of loss, and a resistance to mourning. De Botton’s philosophical reflections provide a backdrop for thinking about how idealisation and disillusionment structure desire, while Abse’s clinical insights working with couples guide discussion on the analyst’s position in relation to unconscious phantasy, secrecy, and the analytic frame.

Participants engage in a discussion of psychoanalytic themes, case discussions, and reflective dialogue from our speakers on countertransference responses when working with clients entangled in affairs. Through this, we deepen our understanding of how infidelity expresses unresolved internal conflicts and the defensive structures that sustain them.

This recording is suitable for psychotherapists seeking make sense of and support their clinical approach to working with desire, betrayal, and the unconscious forces shaping intimate relationships.

Programme

Introduction
  • Welcome and overview of the session.
  • Brief introduction to Juliet Rosenfeld’s Affairs and its psychoanalytic themes.
  • Outline of key areas of discussion: unconscious conflict, repetition compulsion, mourning, and desire.
The Psychoanalytic Framework of Infidelity
  • Juliet Rosenfeld’s perspective: Affairs as expressions of unresolved loss, unprocessed grief, and unconscious fantasy.
  • Alain de Botton’s philosophical lens: Love, idealisation, and the inevitability of disillusionment.
  • Susanna Abse’s clinical reflections: The role of the couple therapist in working with betrayal and unspoken desires.
Clinical Discussion and Case Exploration
  • Presentation case material/selected excerpts from Affairs
  • Group discussion: How do unconscious conflicts manifest in infidelity?
  • Countertransference reflections: How do therapists experience and interpret affairs in the consulting room?
Group Reflection and Application to Practice
  • How do we work psychoanalytically with patients navigating infidelity?
  • The role of transference and resistance in sessions about betrayal.
  • Enactments and the therapeutic frame: Managing secrecy, guilt, and disclosure.
Q&A and Closing Reflections
End

Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton is a psychotherapist, writer and founder of The School of Life. He has written 15 books under his name, including The Consolations of Philosophy and The Course of Love. He has written thirty more under The School of Life name.

Juliet Rosenfeld

Juliet Rosenfeld is a psychotherapist working with adults in private practice in London, having worked in a variety of settings over the last 18 years. She has undertaken both integrative and psychoanalytic trainings and is the author of two books; The State of Disbelief (Hachette 2020) an account of grief and the couple, and Affairs ( Pan Macmillan, 2025) which considers why people have affairs, and the early emotional difficulties that may explain them.

Juliet is interested in widening access to and provision of psychotherapy both through writing for non clinical audiences and her doctoral work at UCL in the Psychoanalysis Department which focuses on couples in long term relationships, and how psychoanalytic tools might be developed to increase support in this neglected area of mental health.

She was a UKCP Elected Trustee 2019-22, and is now Clinical Trustee at the Freud Museum, London.

Susanna Abse

Susanna Abse has worked as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with couples for over 30 years, an experience she shares in her 2022 book, Tell Me the Truth about Love. The book has been published in thirteen countries around the world. She is Co-Director of the Queen Anne Street Practice in central London and was previously the CEO of Tavistock Relationships where she still teaches. Susanna has written extensively on relationship issues, family policy and psychotherapy for professional journals, books, magazines and newspapers and is a the past co-editor of The Library of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis for Routledge Books. She is a senior fellow of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology.

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