ABSTRACT
This chapter will focus on the therapist’s responses to the erotic transference. I will first describe current psychoanalytic views about the countertransference and then explore how this particularly relates to the erotic countertransference. The model developed will relate to the therapist-parent response to the stage appropriateness of the patient-infant. Parenthood and psychotherapy are both activities which generate ambivalence. This will be explored in depth with clinical material relating to four varieties of erotic countertransference: the erotic pre-Oedipal mother, the erotic Oedipal mother, the erotic pre-Oedipal father and the erotic Oedipal father.
