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The behavior of the analyst is importantly affected by his identity as physician, by his need to be a healer. Our cultural image of the physician is shaped by the unchanging imperatives of the sick, epitomized from the past in the Oath of Hippocrates and in the present by the stereotype of "The Old Family Doctor." The qualities of compassion and self-sacrifice constant to these idealized images are also demonstrable in the classic model of the analyst. Their presence implies extreme renunciation of instinctual gratification, except in the altered form of service for others. Examination of the myth and legend of Aesculapius reveals dynamic themes clearly pertinent to the renunciations of the Hippocratic Oath. The major themes include avoidance of open oedipal identification and rivalry with the aggressive rapacity of the father; avoidance of rage at the deserting mother and rival siblings; sublimative or reactive alteration of these destructive and erotic strivings into a serving, preserving, and healing of others that constitutes a reparative identification with the nurturing mother, an effort to please her and placate the father; re-emergence of the aggressive competitiveness as efforts to usurp the paternal prerogatives of knowledge and benevolent conquest disguised as service to others; eventual destruction for trespassing,
even in this fashion, too far into the paternal domain of knowledge and discovery. Similar patterns of conflict and resolution are demonstrated in the personal dynamics and professional conduct of physician patients and training analysands in whom the commitment to healing is great. Common tendencies to masochistic enactment and intellectual inhibition can be traced to these dynamics, and often go unanalyzed because of their ego-syntonic presence in the cultural and ego ideal of the good physician.