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Psychoanalytic Dialogues 12(4), 509-530, 2002
This clinical paper explores the meanings and evolution of an analyst's reaction of fear in relation to her patient's sexualized aggression. From both an intrapsychic and an intersubjective perspective, the author analyses the co-construction of this transference-countertransference phenomenon. Case vignettes illustrate the author's attempts to address her patient's sexualized aggression while struggling to free herself from the feelings of intimidation and fearfulness stirred by his sado-masochistic fantasies and patterns of interaction. The analyst's unconscious identification with the patient's disowned femininity and narcissistic vulnerability is seen as central to this countertransference ‘stranglehold’. Release from the analyst's masochistic position comes through a shift in her own affective participation. The importance of the analyst's recognizing her own unconscious contributions to this sadomasochistic dynamic is emphasized and elaborated. Discussion also focuses on the relevance of gender to the issue of countertransference fear, as illustrated in this particular male patient-female analyst dyad.
Psychoanalytic Dialogues 12(5), 693-714, 2002
This paper addresses the postmodern critique of unified-self theories that argues that the self is not unified but multiple, not a static entity but in constant flux, not a separate center of initiative but intersubjectively constituted. The author proposes that there are two kinds of division in self-experience: the dissociative divisions of multiple-self theory and a division, akin to the divisions between Freud's structural agencies, between what are here termed the ‘intersubjective self’ and ‘primary subjective experience’. In contrast to dissociated self-states, which occur in different moments