The Transference Neurosis: Comments on the Concept and the Phenomenon

AN UNUSUALLY GIFTED and inhibited young man of 19, an only child, ill at ease and intense, came for analysis because of grave concerns about his prolific sexual fantasies (mainly heterosexual), fears of homosexuality (no overt activity ever, as far as I know), absence of heterosexual involvement, and restriction of his social life. It soon became apparent that his relationship to me, from the very beginning, tended to be a duplicate of his relationship to his father which seemed to be a kind of slavish adoration, imitation, and submissive love, with some evidence of rebellion against that position, deep resentment, and of attempts to extricate himself from it. The patient's love for his father seemed as excessive as his hatred and contempt for his mother, who was described as an impulse-ridden, chaotic woman with a host of fads, superstitions, and prejudices. This was in contrast to the father, who was pictured as a passionately rational, rigidly balanced, hard-working man, successful in his work, studious, and retiring. The mother appeared to be slavishly devoted to her husband, looking up to him with childlike respect and admiration, but making great demands on his composure and forbearance by her irrational, anxiety-ridden attitudes toward the family and views on life—the very opposite to his.

Here seems to be an example of a very rapidly-developing transference neurosis. Although many other currents, of course, were present, the patient was in an ambivalent love relationship