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The individual is in constant interaction with others from birth onwards. The primary experience evolves from the innate need for bodily touch and connection, which form the foundation for the psychobiological structure of the individual. The body's anatomy is made to yearn for another, for building a home with the body of another. This makes the body the focal instrument, which is discernible already in the mother-child relationship, as well as later in male-female or husband-wife relationships. The body thus provides the most sacred space, and deep within it carries a natural yearning for another, for having a relationship with another. Relationships are the means through which the body can come to full realization.

On the basis of mechanisms such as projective-introjective identification, basic affect, affect regulation, and repetition compulsion, we shall try to explain the essence of intrapsychic, interpersonal, and relational family dynamics. We will also try to explain how relational connections mutually intertwine in the family system, what sustains them, and why they are created and recreated again and again. It is in this regard that we will also be able to consider the essential salvational process, which occurs precisely on the basis of these mechanisms, that is, those that represent fundamental purification and salvation. Some basic biblical theological concepts are applied. These provide the basis for integrating the psychological and theological domains of family systems.

Couples who are emotionally estranged even though they live together cannot really commit to each other. Their relationship is usually interwoven with painful, mostly unconscious and unaddressed attachment issues. These couples are characterized by a constant fear of intimacy, the leaving/approaching dynamics which provoke further fear in one of the partners and is therefore unstopable. With the help of therapeutic interventions, we will search for the roots of their avoidant behavior and try to creatre a save, intimate place which we call a sacred place, where the healing process can begin.

We all long for relationships with others, because only in connecting with others can we develop our intrapsychic structure and become functional adults. We are psychologically predisposed to have a constant connection with others and are driven toward relationships with others. Our deepest yearnings are therefore devoted to building solid dialogue as the means of becoming fully human. We, therefore, consciously or unconsciously, long for a relationship where we can experience happiness, satisfaction and, above all, redemption or salvation from our dreads, miseries and unhappiness. In this article we presuppose that a therapeutic relationship, demonstrated in a psychoanalytic setting, namely in relational family therapy, can contain redemptive dimensions in which the inextinguishable longing for salvation is always present.

Psychoanalysis has always been full of diversity and controversy, in the theoretical field and especially in the plasticity and variety of its modalities and approaches. Yet all these theories are based on the premise that individuals compulsively repeat their old psycho-organic content, both in their personal lives and in analysis; the premise of Relational Family Therapy is that old emotional, behavioral and bodily complications must first be repeated before being fully processed so that something new can be created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between partners and the analyst is considered the most basic means for healing in contemporary psychoanalytic theories and analyses. It also holds as one of the most fundamental phenomenon's of psychoanalysis, so it comes as no surprise that it has always been deliberated over as an object of great interest as well as immense controversy. This same relationship, mutually co-created by the analyst and each individual and partner in analysis, represents also the core of sanctity and sacred space in contemporary psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traumatic experiences can become the central mental content in our psychic structure and can deeply mark all our later perceptions and experiences of our surroundings. We can claim something similar also for addictions of all kinds. In this article, we will demonstrate that recurring traumatic experiences and abuse as well as addiction represent a hidden mission of psyche for resolution and a great cry of longing for salvation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A human being is in essence a being of relationships, a being of dialogue, which is why everyone, consciously or unconsciously, unstoppably longs for a relationship with others. Every relationship in this sense contains a potential psychic space between I and you, where the most important psychic elements are created and are conducive to new curative experiences. In this article we demonstrate this creative dimension of the human experience in a psychotherapeutic setting, namely in relational family therapy, where the relationship with others and the therapist is considered as the most significant therapeutic phenomena on the basis of which change and transformation are possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]