“…This dislocation of individuals and their conflicts from the larger cultural context reflects the humanistic focus on intrapsychic processes occurring within people. From this liberal-humanist perspective, conflict in intimate relationships is most often conceptualized in essentialist terms, as arising from discrepancies in partner's biological needs or underlying interests (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2000;Keri, 2002;Winslade & Monk, 2000;Winslade, Monk, & Cotter, 1998). The term essentialism is embedded within liberal-humanist traditions that espouse preexisting realities, knowledges, and practices that invite fixed, innate, objective, and truth-based assessments of life (Burr, 1995).…”