The Erotic Transference in Women and in Men: Differences and Consequences

The talking cure, as is well known, was developed in the course of Breuer's therapy with Anna O, but it was also the disruptions of that same therapy that circuitously led to the concept of transference and provided an insight into the nature of the erotic transference.

Breuer, preoccupied with Anna O's treatment, evoked his wife's jealousy. Belatedly recognizing her jealousy, he terminated Anna O's treatment. Shortly afterwards, he was called back to find his patient in the throes of an hysterical childbirth. He calmed her down and, the next day, took his wife on a second honeymoon. Freud recounted the story in a letter to Martha. According to Jones (1953), Martha “identified herself with Breuer's wife, and hoped the same thing would not ever happen to her, whereupon Freud reproved her vanity in supposing that other women would fall in love with her husband; ‘for that to happen one has to be a Breuer.”' Freud, then, even denied the possibility that such an event might happen to him, while Martha seemed to understand intuitively the universal nature of the problem. Only later did Freud come to see Anna O's reaction as the rule rather than the exception.