The Challenge of Erotized Transference to Psychoanalytic Technique

Classical analysis began as a treatment method for neuroses. Within the neuroses there is an expectable pattern for the development of the transference. In this expected pattern the transference will eventually bring up overt sexual wishes, but the process of sexualization of the transference is expected to be slow, hesitant and conflictual. The reason for this expected pattern is that neurotics have not resolved their Oedipus complex and feel guilty over their oedipal wishes, sexual as well as aggressive, as they appear in the transference. The development of the transference is expected to recapitulate the oedipal constellation, with the analyst in the role of the forbidden parent.

The women who have developed erotized transference early in the treatment and without the expected guilt have not followed the expected pattern. They have evoked countertransference reactions in the male analyst, as well as feelings of bewilderment and helplessness, and, eventually, hostility. Now that psychoanalytically oriented therapists have ventured to analyze patients within a wider scope than the neuroses, erotized transferences should be anticipated, and therapists should be ready to treat them.

Women developing erotized transference in treatment with male therapists have not fared well in psychoanalytic literature. The difficulty