Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Intense erotic transference is one of the most powerful and challenging phenomena in clinical psychoanalysis. Powerful longings for love and for sexual gratification are likely to elicit enactments in the analytic setting that interfere with the analyst's ability to maintain a dual state of awareness in which he or she is both a participant in and an observer of the immediate experience with the patient. These enactments occur on a continuum from frank love affairs between patient and analyst to subtle forms of partial transference gratification. Moreover, the two primary elements in the manifest content of erotic transference--love and lust--may be dissociated from one another and may produce significantly different reactions in the analyst.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bergmann, M. S. (1985–1986). Transference love and love in real life. Int. J. Psychoanal. Psychother., 11:27–45.

Blum, H. P. (1973). The concept of erotized transference. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 21:61–76.

Brenner, C. (1982). The Mind in Conflict. New York: Int. Univ. Press.

Chused, J. F. (1991). The evocative power of enactments. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 39:615–639.

Coen, S. J. (1992). The Misuse of Persons: Analyzing Pathological Dependency. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.

Edmunds, L. (1988). His master's choice. Johns Hopkins Magazine, April, pp. 40–49.

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1954). An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality. New York: Basic Books.

Fleming, J. (1961). What analytic work requires of an analyst: a job analysis. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 9:179–729.

Freud, S. (1915). Observations on transference-love. S. E., 12.

10.

Friedman, L. (1991). A reading of Freud's papers on technique. Psychoanal. Q., 60:564–595.

11.

Fromm-Reichmann, F. (1989). Reminiscences of Europe. In Psychoanalysis and Psychosis, ed. A. Silver . Madison, CT: Int. Univ. Press, pp. 469–481.

12.

Gabbard, G. O. (1991a). Psychodynamics of sexual boundary violations. Psychiat. Annals, 21(11):651–655.

13.

Gabbard, G. O. (1991b). Technical aproaches to transference hate in the analysis of borderline patients. Int. J. Psychoanal., 72:625–637.

14.

Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York: Norton.

15.

Jacobs, T.J. (1986).On countertransference enactments. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 34:289–307.

16.

Mclaughlin, J. T. (1991). Clinical and theoretical aspects of enactment. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 39:595–614.

17.

Ogden, T. H. (1979). On projective identification. Int. J. Psychoanal., 60:357–373.

18.

Ogden, T. H. (1986). The Matrix of the Mind. Northvale, NJ: Aronson.

19.

Person, E. S. (1985). The erotic transference in women and in men: differences and consequences.J. Amer. Acad. Psychoanal., 13:159–180.

20.

Person, E. S. (1988). Dreams of Love and Other Fateful Encounters: Romance in Our Time. New York: Norton.

21.

Quinn, S. (1987). A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney. New York: Summit Books.

22.

Sandler, J. (1976). Countertransference and role responsiveness. Int. Rev. Psychoanal., 3:43–47.

23.

Schafer, R. (1977). The interpretation of transference and the conditions for loving. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 25:335–362.

24.

Stepansky, P. F. , Ed. (1988). The Memoirs of Margaret S. Mahler. New York: Free Press.

25.

Sterba, R. (1934). The fate of the ego in analytic therapy. Int. J. Psychoanal., 15:117–126.

ON LOVE AND LUST IN EROTIC TRANSFERENCE

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References