Love and Being Left Out: The Primal Scene and Erotic Transference in Remote Work during the Pandemic

The night before the shelter in place order in San Francisco, when my denial was just starting to brace for impact, I had the following dream:

I was an adult, in my bedroom of my 840-square-foot childhood home. I had my pajamas on and was anxiously preparing for patients to come and see me. I only had one chair. It was the actual chair I had in my bedroom growing up. Scored from a garage sale, it seemed so precious even with its rusted silver legs, faded blue vinyl. I was thinking, Can patients sit here? Where do I sit? On my bed?

I woke up in a panic.

Within a day, I was seeing all of my patients over Zoom, with better hygiene, clothing, and a home than my dream foretold, but the anxiety was the same. I was jealous of my colleagues who had so much more experience than I did with this new medium, and I felt cranky, resistant, and terrified.

At least for the first few days.

Then, like everything else in this new normal of our disembodied world, I settled into a routine. I realized my thinking could survive what I initially felt to be the void of video sessions. I could consider the impact of my own loss and how it impacted my patients. I was not back in my childhood home. Unlike the disorganized use of my mind as a child, I realized I could think in the usual way to help my patients.

A woman I will refer to as Julie began treatment a couple years ago and had dimmed her sexual ideas about me as we settled snugly into our work in my actual office. Her treatment was mostly organized around complex trauma, which had never been labeled as such. Her marriage was ostensibly satisfying but left her feeling that she always had to take care of her wife, whom she felt was emotionally needy. Her professional life was a series of Pyrrhic victories. Her power, influence, and prestige were felt to be given over to those who were starving and for whom she had to provide. Yet, I could imagine her needs, and she was beginning to believe that I could help her consider a life in which she was