On ‘The analyst at work’

Dear Sirs,

In the section ‘The Analyst at Work’ of the most recent issue of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, material is presented by Elias M. da Rocha Barros from the analysis of a woman who complained, rather bitterly, that it was her attractive, seductive, charming appearance and behaviour which caught her husband's, father's and analyst's attention, and that it was extremely painful that they and others failed to respond to the ‘inner person’. Both the analyst whose material it was, as well as the two discussants, did an excellent job of understanding the material in terms of her longing to be recognised as having intrinsic value and her distress over separation and sense of aloneness. However, all three authors appeared to accept her complaints that her seductive, attractive and charming behaviour was an external attribute that she felt compelled to adopt to be ‘special’, but which she inwardly despised. I wonder how much these analysts’ acceptance of her complaints about others’ response to her seductiveness was a collusion with her defensive denial of her pleasure in her capacity to seduce—a mixed pleasure, to be sure, but a pleasure none the less. My impression is that ‘the lady doth protest too much’, which suggests a defensive retreat from oedipal rivalry with the colourless mother which coexists with her pre-oedipal longings.