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A decade ago Wrye and Wells (1989) created the concept of the “maternal erotic transference” to describe aspects of some patients' longings for immersion in the sensuality of bodily contact with a maternal presence in their analyst. In subsequent work (Wells and Wrye, 1991; Wrye and Wells, 1994) these authors have elaborated the manifestations of this important clinical phenomenon and have enriched our ability to appreciate more fully the relational components and complexities of sexuality. In so doing, they also have extended Freud's (1905) developmental grounding for the polymorphous nature of sexuality and have widened our ability to engage with our patients in the psychoanalytic provision of empathic holding and interpretation of eroticism as lived in all realms of fantasy and domains of experience.
In his work, Wayne (Vol. 3, no. 1) seeks to develop the contributions of Wrye and Wells by considering how the sex and gender identifications of the male analyst facilitate or hinder the process of working through maternal erotic transferences and countertransferences. In this effort he is specifically interested in illuminating how “the male analyst encounters certain internal obstacles that are gender specific” (p. 105) and how these interfere with the imperative