ABSTRACT
As many authors affirm, the analytic setting provides the environment that allows us to study the nature of love in all its many forms. The transference and countertransference are the natural objects of study for all these types of love. As Kernberg postulates: The main difference between the original oedipal situation and transference love is the possibility, under optimal circumstances, of fully exploring in the transference the unconscious determinants of the oedipal situation. The patient's experience of the analyst's rejection, as confirmation of the prohibitions against oedipal desires, should also be explored. The erotic transference is not a rare occurrence during analysis and indicates an intricate clinical node, full of difficult problems to understand and to place in the correct developmental perspective. S. Freud postulates that it is important to keep the erotic transference alive with the aim of revealing its infantile roots. S. Bolognini has proposed a classification that includes various types of transference: erotised, loving, and affectionate.
