Veiled within complex relational expression, the trauma of severe intrafamilial childhood sexual abuse most often affects an individual across the life span. In this discussion of Genevieve, a client with whom I worked for five years, one aspect of this impact, and its articulation within the therapeutic dyad, is illustrated. Through her eroticized maternal transference, specifically situated within the context of her trauma history, she expressed a deep yearning for the basic nurturance, protection, and affection so dramatically absent from her early life, yet she expressed this initially as an erotic acknowledgment, as learned from the only interpersonal vocabulary of her abuse experience. Rich with meaning and dimension, this transference paradigm, only one aspect of a complex treatment relationship, gently unfolded within a frame of uniquely shared sensibility. Over the years, through her close engagement in the treatment relationship and her serious commitment to the treatment process,