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In this volume, the third in a series, Freud's classical 1915 paper, ‘Observations on Transference-Love’, is presented along with ten papers by psycho-analysts of differing orientations. Their brief was ‘to extract the essay's important and enduring contributions, to clarify ambiguities and to establish some line of continuity between the original paper and current issues and concerns and to express the reviewer's own views as if he or she were teaching the paper.’
The outcome makes for stimulating reading and provokes thinking over a wide range of issues as contributors take up their individual perspectives. In addition to the central thrust of the original paper - Freud advising male therapists on how to understand and handle the ‘elemental passionateness’ of certain female patients - the paper itself and the reviews of it here raise other issues that are fundamental to psycho-analytic theory and practice: the nature of reality in the consulting room, analytic ‘truth’, acting out, the meaning and role of abstinence, and the nature of love.
It is also a timely publication given that the whole field of psychotherapy has been much under attack in the media for abuses of power and integrity. Freud is addressing these issues from the therapist's viewpoint. Though clear about the therapist's responsibility, he underlines the ‘explosive’ power of aspects of the transference relationship and how overwhelming these may be when the therapist has insufficient knowledge and experience. Freud insists that it is not the person of the therapist but his role that excites transference love. Some of the contributors remind us of the likely historical context, the fact that Breuer, Ferenczi and Jung were each burned by powerful erotic transferences and failed to maintain an appropriate position, thus compromising the treatment and the analytic truth that was Freud's passion.