Behind the Couch: Uses and Misuses of Temptation

Sharply divided opinions characterized this panel, making for an interesting afternoon. The issue at stake was the optimal analytic attitude and technical approach to the inevitable “temptations” and “minor transgressions” that occur in the daily work of psychoanalysts. The panelists fell into two camps. Stanley Coen, organizer and chair, and Joyce Slochower, both from New York, drew a firm line, feeling analysts do not consistently “grasp” or “catch” themselves in their minor lapses so they can reflect on what they have done or been tempted to do. This camp views such lapses as critically important signals, given their potential to stalemate treatments. In contrast, Michael Parsons of London and Dominique Scarfone of Montreal saw the questions posed by the panel as too narrow and missing the point of what the analytic endeavor needs to be about. Hence the panel provided an eloquent debate over what internal environment on the part of the analyst facilitates the most useful kind of analytic listening, immersion, creativity, and outcome.

Coen put forth the questions to be addressed: How do we decide what is and isn't appropriate for us as analysts to experience as we sit behind the couch with our patients? How far can we let ourselves go in our wishes, fantasies, and temptations at work? What are the limits of our desires as analysts? How much sexual temptation should we feel with an attractive patient in an erotic transference? How sexually aroused should we become? How much detachment, distance, or lack of concern should we feel with a schizoid patient who needs to maintain distance? How much should we want to share in a narcissistically impressive patient's specialness, talent, and celebrity? How much murderous hatred should we feel with an angry, rejecting, negativistic patient? How much of what we imagine aims to satisfy our own idiosyncratic needs; how much has to do with our patients' needs? How do we decide whether our idiosyncratic needs are somehow interconn