Letters in Response to Jody Messler Davies's “Between the Disclosure and Foreclosure of Erotic Transference—Countertransference: Can Psychoanalysis Find a Place for Adult Sexuality”

It was a joy to be tangled in the thoughts that Davies's (PD 8/6) wonderfully challenging article inspired. Some questions remain. In

particular, I am confused by an implicit intermix of theory. My understanding of Davies1 is that she embraces an appreciation of the postmodern conceptualization of multiplicity in human development and relational expression.

In this most recent article, however, a more linear developmental model is discussed with regard to sexual development. Wouldn't an understanding of “multiple selves” imply that sexual experience and expression could progress quite “normally” under certain conditions but could be pathologically narrowed under other conditions? In the treatment setting, then, one could witness a host of alive sexual experiences within the therapeutic dyad, changing momentarily in a (to use Davies's metaphor) kaleidoscopic manner, and not necessarily in a linear fashion.

How does one integrate an appreciation of multiplicity with a more traditionally linear model of sexual development?