Love Songs, Couples, and Couple Therapy

The love songs that come to mind in the course of the therapist’s work with couples are seen as a form of unconscious communication; a shortcut to what is at the core of each couple’s particular dynamic. During the presentation, the participants will be invited to listen to songs that have been helpful to Perrine Moran in her clinical work, and to share those songs and experiences they wish to discuss. Allowing our third ear to let in songs lodged in our cultural archive can open the door to clinical perceptions and different therapeutic stances. Principles borrowed from Mentalization Based Treatment (MBT) theory and practice are examined in relation to clinical illustrations.

Perrine Moran is a psychodynamic psychotherapist and a couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She has taught internationally as well as at Tavistock and Portman NHS and the British Psychotherapy Foundation, and is a senior visiting lecturer and supervisor at Tavistock Relationships. She is the Arts Editor for Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, and a member of the editorial board of the journal of the International Association for Couple and Family Psychoanalysis. She is bilingual, works with individuals and couples in English and in French, and has a private practice in London. She has a particular interest in the links between popular culture, art, and psychoanalysis. She co-edited a special issue of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis on “Couples and Families in Film” (Spring 2025) and is the author of Love Songs: Listening to Couples (Karnac, 2025). Before training as a psychotherapist, Perrine Moran was a lecturer in French Literature, and an actress in Paris, where she ran a fringe theatre in the basement of a Cuban restaurant.

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