Perrine Moran considers the power of popular love songs to trigger emotion and capture what is at the heart of couple dynamics. In songs, music and words – the non-verbal and verbal – combine to create a unit. In couples, two people create a unit that combines togetherness and individuality, a potentially problematic blend.

The dilemma of how to be emotionally dependent on another without losing oneself underlies many issues that couples bring to therapy and is the stuff of many love songs. Its management results in different dynamics, which the chapters of this book identify. An understanding of the unconscious connections between early, primary relationships and those formed in adulthood sheds light on the experiences of couples, whether or not they enter therapy.

Written in an accessible and relatable style, Perrine Moran brings psychoanalytic concepts to couple relationships through the medium of music. In her clinical work as a couple therapist, she often found herself thinking of a specific song that encapsulated something at the core of a couple. At other times, a song came to mind that captured a pattern repeated in a number of couples. Intrigued, Moran began to explore in depth the link between love songs and couples. The result is a book that focuses on different types of couple dynamics, such as disappointment, enmeshment, and difference, and the songs and case vignettes that best illustrate them.

A playlist, Love Songs. Listening to Couples, is available on digital streaming services (Spotify, Amazon Music), for readers to enjoy as they turn the pages of the relevant chapters .

Love Songs: Listening to Couples is ideal for practitioners and trainees working with couples and will appeal to a wide range of readers who enjoy popular music and are curious, for personal, academic or professional reasons, about couple dynamics and problematic interactions.