Psychotherapy: An Erotic Relationship


Book Description

Psychotherapy: An Erotic Relationship challenges the traditional belief that transference and countertransference are merely forms of resistance which jeopardize the therapeutic process. David Mann shows how the erotic feelings and fantasies experienced by clients and therapists can be used to bring about a positive transformation. Combining extensive clinical material with theoretical insights and new research on infants, the author traces erotic development back to the parent-child relationship, drawing parallels between this relationship and the therapist/client dyad. Individual chapters explore the function of the erotic within the unconscious, pre-Oedipal and Oedipal material, homoeroticism in therapy, sexual intercourse as a metaphor for psychological change, the primal scene and the difficulties of working with perversions.




Erotic Transference and Countertransference


Book Description

Erotic Transference and Countertransference brings together, for the first time, contemporary views on how psychotherapists and analysts work with and think about the erotic in therapeutic practice. Representing a broad spectrum of psychoanalytic perspectives, including object relations, Kleinian, Jungian and Lacanian thought, the contributors highlight similarities and differences in their approaches to the erotic in transference and countertransference, ranging from love and sexual desire to perverse and psychotic manifestations. Erotic Transferenceand Countertransference offers ways of understanding the erotic which should prove both useful and thought-provoking.




Gender, Countertransference, and the Erotic Transference


Book Description

How do gender and sexual difference influence the erotic transference? Gender, Countertransference and the Erotic Transferenceoffers new insights into working with complex transference and countertransference phenomena. Including views from a wide spectrum of theoretical backgrounds, it makes a unique contribution to discourse on the themes of gender, sexuality and the erotic transference. The contributors are highly experienced clinicians with international reputations as theorists in the fields of analytical psychology, psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Illustrated with closely observed clinical examples and detailed theoretical discussion, innovations in technique are introduced on themes including developmental mourning, female perversion, the meaning and purpose of the erotic transference, the dying patient, lesbian homoerotic transference and supervision of the erotic transference. Countertransference is vividly explored in chapters on sexual difference, the therapist's body and the challenging topic of perversion in the analyst. The book is divided into four sections: gender and the erotic transference the erotic transference and the symbolic function women working with women historical perspectives on women working with men. Gender, Countertransference and the Erotic Transferenceextends existing theory, highlighting the symbolic nature of the transference/countertransference dynamic. It will be compelling reading for experienced clinicians, students and trainees in the fields of psychoanalysis, analytical psychology and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, as well as counselling, the arts therapies and social work. ored in chapters on sexual difference, the therapist's body and the challenging topic of perversion in the analyst. The book is divided into four sections: gender and the erotic transference the erotic transference and the symbolic function women working with women historical perspectives on women working with men. Gender, Countertransference and the Erotic Transferenceextends existing theory, highlighting the symbolic nature of the transference/countertransference dynamic. It will be compelling reading for experienced clinicians, students and trainees in the fields of psychoanalysis, analytical psychology and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, as well as counselling, the arts therapies and social work.




Deepening Intimacy in Psychotherapy


Book Description

In this provocative volume, Dr. Florence W. Rosiello addresses erotic dynamics in the treatment relationship within the context of a two-person therapy, emphasizing the necessity of mutuality and emotional reciprocity between patient and therapist. With rich clinical illustrations, she demonstrates how the intimacy created by working within the sexual dimension of the therapeutic relationship may present opportunities for insight and growth that could easily be missed if one seeks to avoid these highly charged issues. Focusing on those patients who are predisposed to relating to others in a sexualized manner, Dr. Rosiello has discovered that mutual exploration of both the therapist's and the patient's subjective experience offers a valuable and effective means of enhancing the treatment.




The Narration of Desire


Book Description

In this richly woven study of preoedipal erotic experience, Harriet Kimble Wrye and Judith Welles focus on patients for whom early mothering did not sustain the flowering and subsequent transformation of early erotic desire. Such patients remain under the sway of a primitive eroticism that is often sadistic and invariably perverse. Successful analytic work requires accepting and containing the patient's primitive erotic needs; reconstructing the mother-infant narratives that sustain these needs; and mobilizing the patient's transformative desire to grow out of maternal eroticism to an adult love of self and others.




Erotic Transference


Book Description

Erotic Transferences: A Contemporary Introduction offers a comprehensive introduction to this key, yet challenging aspect of the psychoanalytic process. Despite emerging frequently in the psychoanalytic process, Andrea Celenza highlights the sparseness of literature on erotic transferences and a tendency to desexualise psychoanalytic theorizing, which she posits is a result of the inherent threat erotic transferences can pose to the analyst. By providing a thorough overview of the topic, clarifying terminology, and providing vivid case examples, Celenza seeks to redress this omission. Throughout this volume, she discusses the interplay of power and gender, along with chapters on the temptation of disclosure and the disturbing prevalence of sexual boundary violations. Providing practitioners with the tools to deal with the intense feelings that inevitably arise with erotic transferences, this book is vital reading for all psychoanalysts at all levels of experience and seniority, psychodynamic practitioners, instructors, candidates, and trainees.




Supervising and Being Supervised


Book Description

Supervision is an essential constituent of analytic and psychotherapy training and a crucial part of ongoing professional development for all practitioners. In spite of this, little formal theory about supervision has been developed and, for the most part, learning to supervise has progressed using a simple apprenticeship model. Supervising and Being Supervised aims to rectify this situation. Jan Wiener, Richard Mizen and Jenny Duckham draw together contributions from a number of experienced Jungian analysts who supervise to explore key aspects of the supervisory experience with the aim of developing a theory for analytically-based work. Part One explores the nature of the supervisor-supervisee relationship, Part Two looks at a number of the settings and applications of supervision and Part Three examines problems that might occur in supervision. In the fourth and final part, and drawing on the previous chapters, the focus turns specifically to the challenges of developing a clear theory of supervision.




Sexual Boundary Violations


Book Description

This book addresses training, supervisory, and therapeutic issues related to the consequences from sexual boundary violations among mental health professionals and clergy. These problems are discussed on theoretical and practical levels aimed at understanding, recovery, rehabi...




A Disturbance in the Field


Book Description

"This outstanding volume of essays presents an extraordinary synthesis of classical and contemporary concepts and methods of psychoanalysis, with immediate relevance to clinical practice. The author's encyclopedic knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature brings the reader into the exciting center of current clinical psychoanalysis. The extensive clinical illustrations, with detailed evaluation of his participation in the analytic work and particular attention to its imperfections, form the heart of this book. These clinical discussions, more than anything else, highlight the power of the modern focus on countertransference and the analyst's contributions to the psychoanalytic dialogue."ùAnton O. Kris, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School --Book Jacket




Creativity and the Erotic Dimensions of the Analytic Field


Book Description

Creativity and the Erotic Dimensions of the Analytic Field centers on the mutually reinforcing relationship between erotic and creative energies. Erotic embodiment is given context within a contemporary model of clinical process based in analytic field theory and highlighting Winnicott. Dianne Elise uses clinical material to bring theory alive, giving clinicians an explicit picture of how they might utilize the ideas presented. In a fascinating return to Freud’s emphasis on libido and Eros, a creative mind is seen as located within a libidinal connection to the erotic body. The erotic is underscored as an important ingredient of the clinical situation—a lively spontaneity that partakes of the analyst’s as well as the patient’s creative self, vitalizing the field of clinical engagement. A full formulation of the analytic field must include awareness of the centrality of the erotic in the maternal matrix, in ongoing development, and in the clinical setting. The erotic-aesthetic dimension of the mind potentiates the creative interplay of the analytic process. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this original contribution makes complex theory available to psychoanalytic clinicians at all levels, and to a wide range of readers, while offering sophisticated theoretical and clinical innovations. Elise addresses the need to engage multiple aspects of erotic life while maintaining a reliable professional boundary.