The author relates actual teasing by the parent of the opposite sex to the lack of resolution of the Oedipal problem of the child. He quotes S. J. Sperling on the dual functions of teasing. There is defensive denial at the same time that there is the more constructive function of the child learning to libidinize and master the painful frustration.

When the adult patient expects sexual gratification from the analyst, the author recommends that the patient be told explicitly that no such gratification is possible. Clinical examples are a husband and wife seen separately by the same analyst. One wonders if the author was aware that seeing both husband and wife might have been perceived as a seductive tease, especially by the wife who was not content merely to have a sit-in-the-lap fantasy. This potential seduction might have made it seem all the more necessary for the analyst to be authoritarian to the extent of making the taboo explicit.