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The ethics of psychoanalysis can be measured on the cutting edge of its relation to truth.
This axiom is at the center of Freud's entire discussion of what he considers to be the main stumbling block of analysis, in its historical development as well as in the course of each treatment — namely, the case in which a woman gives unmistakable clues or declares straight out that she has fallen in love with the doctor who is analyzing her.
I am deliberately retaining the terms used by Freud, who when speaking of transference love (Übertragungsliebe) or erotic transference (Liebesübertragung), considers the case — and this case only — of a woman in love with a male analyst who is also a doctor. The context, of course, must be taken into account. Freud's remarks on transference love were written in 1915, and Laienanalyse (“lay analysis”: analysis as practiced by nondoctors, or as a discipline unrelated to medicine) would not be mentioned until eleven years later. But above all, it would appear at first glance that this was the only sort of case which showed up with enough clarity or which Freud had encountered thus far: “It has come to my knowledge that some doctors who practise analysis frequently [häufig1]