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This article discusses the profound responsibilities associated with the psychoanalyst's role, given the ways in which the structure of the psychoanalytic setting both stimulates and frustrates fantasies of romantic perfection. The analyst's responsibility begins with an awareness of the full extent of the seductive power inherent in the psychoanalytic structure. Against a background of the two defining dimensions of the treatment setting, mutuality and asymmetry, this article discusses the ways in which these dimensions intensify the experience and longing for intimate, sexual union.
It Can Be Said That the Treatment Frame, Especially the seductiveness of unconditional acceptance and commitment, both stimulates and frustrates fundamental and universal longings, including (a) the desire for unity (to be loved totally and without separateness), (b) the desire for purity (to be loved without hate and unreservedly), (c) the desire for reciprocity (to love and be loved in return), and finally, (d) the desire for omnipotence (to be so powerful that one is loved by everyone everywhere at all times).
The asymmetric distribution of attention, comprising the analyst's professional and disciplined commitment to the analysand, frustrates these wishes and instantiates several hierarchical power relations. These power imbalances are ambivalently held by both patient and analyst. Both analyst