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I want to begin my reply to this discussion by thanking Virginia Goldner for her thoughtful response to my paper, in particular for her appreciation of my clinical work with Davida. This was a difficult treatment to conduct, and it was difficult to decide to present this case. So, I was very pleased to find in the discussion that Virginia responded with understanding and compassion for both Davida and me.
Goldner and I certainly agree that it was crucial for the treatment for Davida to push the limits of the frame, while needing me to push back. Goldner tended to think of this in terms of Davida's search for authenticity and my becoming more “real” in the treatment. There is a linkage here, however, that I would like to question. I hope that my discussant would agree with me that maintaining an analytic role (with its commensurate frame) would not necessarily be correlated with being inauthentic, or that breaking an analytic role (or frame) is inherently authentic. I think what makes the difference in this case was the context of the relationship between Davida and myself, which included a great deal of run-of-the-mill analytic work that was done by us as well as the crises I described.
Goldner has raised other questions to which I want to respond. I will make comments about three areas—two of which may seem odd— of the discussion. These are: general comments on gender and sexuality; a defense of the father; and a defense of objectification.
Goldner begins her discussion by stating that “feminism and the postmodern turn have vaporized the commonsense meanings of gender and sexuality, both in psychoanalytic theory and, for many, as lived