Meeting of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York

DISCUSSION: Dr. Robert A. Savitt agreed with Dr. Blum's description of the erotized transference but felt that two other aspects should be considered: the pre-analytic erotized transference which is manifested in the life style of some patients, and the silent erotized transference in which the erotic feelings are masked by hostility and deprecation of the analyst, or by indifference to him. Dr. Savitt presented two cases to illustrate these aspects of erotized transference. While he agreed that it can occur in many different types of patients, he would enlarge the concept to include these two aspects. He suggested that Dr. Blum's concept might be termed a 'classical erotized transference' and that his additional examples might be termed 'atypical erotized transference'.

Dr. Jerome Silverman agreed with Dr. Blum's re-emphasis of the significance of the ego in the clinical manifestations and analyzability of erotized transference. However, he found the current usage of the term 'erotized transference' semantically confusing and prejudicial; he proposed use of the term 'instinctualized transference' which can represent either erotized or aggressivized transference, or both. He suggested that erotized transference states have the same quality of closeness to the ego and superego, to intrasystemic conflict, and to development as the transference neurosis has been considered to have to the id and to symptom-formation. He doubts that erotized transference can occur without important pregenital fixations; it functions not only as a revival of an infantile incestuous fixation but also as a revival of an altered sense of reality connected with early severe trauma. It can function as a defense against destruction of the object or as an attempt at restitution of a lost object through obsessive preoccupation with the analyst. A differentiation must be made between the universal erotic transference and an unanalyzable transference psychosis.

In conclusion, Dr. Blum state