ABSTRACT
The issue of love in the psychotherapeutic relationship is one that has preoccupied psychotherapists since Freud's early paper on observations on transference-love (Freud, 1915). One strand of thought concerning these ideas is re¯ected in the psychoanalytic literature on erotic transference (e.g. Mann, 1999). A different perspective is provided by the idea that trust and caring needs to develop between therapist and client for the process to have a more successful outcome; whether one would describe close empathic encounters as `love' might be a matter for debate, but it is evident that deep engagement in the therapeutic process engenders deep feelings on both sides of the dyad. A recent edition of the journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry was devoted to the topic of `The Analyst's Love', creating a forum for a number of interesting ideas (e.g. Slavin, 2007). Looked at developmentally, there is now a general recognition of the importance of love and care in early childhood for the creation of physical and psychological health (e.g. Gerhardt, 2004). Our earlier points about the neuroscienti®c effect of loving care and the negative effects of neglect also highlight the biological signi®cance of love. The importance of love in the therapeutic theory of Carl Rogers has been highlighted by Kahn (1997) who links the idea of love with the Rogerian requirements for genuineness, congruence and unconditional positive regard in the therapeutic process. There is also some evidence that clients who really matter to their therapist do better in treatment (Jones et al., 2003).
