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In the course of a successful psychoanalysis, the analyst goes through a phase of reacting to and eventually relinquishing the patient as his Oedipal love object. The analyst develops romantic and erotic feelings toward his patient and may have fantasies of marrying him. The analyst should permit himself to experience such feelings fully, and should not attempt to repress them because of guilt or shame. Their development augurs well for the success of the analysis. Searles does not approve of the analyst's expressing such feelings to the patient, but he feels the patient may be permitted to become aware of them, and know that they are unrealizable. The patient's awareness of the analyst's erotic and romantic attachment, as well as the unrealizability of these feelings, aids his acceptance of himself as a mature sexual individual, and also his ultimate renunciation of the analyst as a sexual object. It may be more important for the schizophrenic than for the neurotic to become aware that his sexual feelings toward the analyst are, in a sense, reciprocated.
Searles believes also that the Oedipal phase leads to ego impairment and the evolution of a rigid superego, to the extent that a child's parents are unable to accept their own neurotic feelings toward him. The relationship of the mature parent to his child contains erotic elements that are deeply felt but only minimally acted out. This relationship aids the child in the resolution of his Oedipal feelings toward the parent.