Transference by Any other Name

We see things not as they are but as we are.

What follows is a series of possibilities which lie along different levels of awareness. First the article describes a literature search which may be taken at face value. Second this so-called literature search may be seen as a displacement; a safe haven from the ‘real’ search which has - or has not - taken place in therapy. There are suggestions in the article that I may fear my therapist, i.e. fear the dangers inherent in a relationship with him. I am not yet able to describe these fears fully. I am able, as we all are, to control the literature by selection. Third, my decision to write this is a yearning for approval, albeit from a distance. The detailed attention to the literature - rather than to the feeling - search is perhaps an obvious play for respectability via association; I also mention some of my (current) heroes who have aired their feelings in recent publications. Lastly there is my search for a home for this article and my belief that it deserves a home. I do want to be a good father to it. You may well ask therefore why I am giving it away. You may well indeed.

Taking off and the Fear of Flying

I never new my father. The last sentence was meant to read I never knew my father but I made a mistake. You may think this mistake in some way significant. I last ‘saw’ my father when I was eighteen months old at which time he left never to return. I have no memory of his leaving me.

About a year ago I started training in psychotherapy and was lucky to discover a tutor whose erudition and wisdom I could easily admire. One of his requests was that I write an essay under the heading I have given to this article; he liked it very much. Of course I was very pleased to discover that he liked it. At the end of the academic year he announced his retirement. The majority of the student body were clearly distressed at his going, with much apprehension for the future. I experienced little emotion at his