Discussion of Jacob Swartz's Article, The Erotized Transference and Other Transference Problems

Dr. Swartz has given a very clear picture of some of the problems encountered by the analyst when he undertakes the treatment of those patients who respond to the analytic situation with negativistic behavior or erotized transference reactions.

No doubt limitations of space have forced Dr. Swartz to leave relatively unexplored such intriguing facets as etiology, psychopathology, natural history of the illness and the question of a second analysis.

As far as etiology is concerned, Dr. Swartz does not go much beyond his remarks that the origin of a predisposition to an erotized transference in terms of object relationship is not easy to delineate and that pregenital factors predominate.

Winnicott1 has referred to “environmental failure at an early stage of the emotional development of the individual” as a predisposing factor in patients who develop severe regressive states during analysis.

Anna Freud2 has enumerated the explanations given for the behavior of “negativistic children who refuse the slightest demand or assistance from the part of their surroundings because they want to be independent”—early disappointment in the object, early seduction, temptations by the object and excessive narcissism, etc. She found these explanations insufficient but did mention with respect to an individual who was negativistic as a child, as well as when grown up and in treatment,

that negativism may sometimes prove to be a defense against the fear of being “invaded” by the love object.

I have been struck by the number of times patients who developed erotized transference reactions gave a history of having received their early mothering from a mother whose ability to cathect them as ob