ABSTRACT
The erotic transference has a long and somewhat contentious history in analytic literature from the time when Freud regarded it as a form of resistance to treatment, to the present time when psychotherapy has in essence been described as an erotic relationship (Mann, 1997). Mann and other contemporary thinkers consider the erotic as a necessary and inevitable expression of the positive transference indicative of the client's search for a new transformational object. Mann sees the erotic as `at the heart of unconscious fantasy life' and the `very creative stuff of life . . . inextricably linked to passion' (1997: 4). He considers that all human relationships are in some way bound by eros with the early mother±infant bond being the ®rst erotic relationship. The therapeutic relationship offers the opportunity to work through pre-Oedipal and Oedipal con¯icts by means of a transformational experience that can heal the past and lead to a creative adult capacity to love. In this process the client can be assisted to distinguish gradually between infant erotic and adult sexual feelings. Mann agrees that since erotic love impulses can be sublimated in the course of the therapy, transference love can be harnessed in the service of cure and insight. We agree with Mann that the erotic is inevitably present in the therapeutic relationship and whether the therapist acknowledges this or not he participates in it, so it is essential that he develops his sensitivity to this domain of therapy and harnesses these feelings in the interests of growth and change.
