Response

Dear Sir

Chabrol and Sztulman make two interesting points. They suggest that the transference-countertransference dynamic I described involved projective identification and that the transference reflected my patient's unconscious experience of incestuous pressure. I suspect that my different psychoanalytic lexicon may have left some unclarity regarding my understanding of the re-enactment dynamic, for I am largely in agreement with the writers on both points. My use of the term re-enactment assumed that processes of projective identification were operative; Emily unconsciously experienced aspects of the treatment relationship as a recreation of the maternal—child dynamic, responding to me as a sadistic, penetrating mother, and I identified with both my patient's experience and with her mother's. Within the analytic third (Ogden 1994), I contacted parallels to these issues in my own life and was able to indirectly use these with Emily in an effort to clarify a painful and dissociated dynamic.

The authors further suggest that adolescents may experience maternal intrusiveness as an incestuous menace, suggesting that my aversive countertransference involved a defense against incestuous erotic excitement. This is a crucial point, particularly in cases of sexual abuse. I agree (and thought I had made clear) that my patient's transference involved sexual (incestuous) elements along with more overtly sadistic ones. My intention was not to ignore the role of erotics in this transference-counter-transference pattern, but instead to underscore both the pre-oedipal nature of those erotics and their defensive functions.

I am unsure whether the authors' use of the term incestuous alludes particularly to oedipal level erotics; in my own view, my patient's erotic desire was more reflective of a pre-oedipal maternal erotic transference. The very messy, coercive and intrusive countertransference that I experienced is highly characteristic of the analyst's response to maternal erotic tra