ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the gap in theoretical understanding of the meaning of an erotic transference and the use of non-interpretative measures to deal with it clinically. Analytic training rarely provides education and supervision about the difficult phenomenon of an erotic transference. The emergence in an erotic transference in the psychoanalytic situation can be understood as a function of the enactment of a childhood incest trauma. In the early 1980s, another insight-provoking case appeared, which became the conduit for able to integrate the supervision learning experience with Larry Wolberg, the research on Sandor Ferenczi, the acquaintanceship with humanistic psychotherapy, and clinical experiences with trauma cases. The emergence of an erotic transference, when it occurs, is an essential condition to the unfolding of the analysis and should be welcomed as a positive development. With very difficult analysands, active/empathic intervention based upon an understanding of childhood trauma and the resultant developmental arrest, non-interpretative measures target the unfulfilled needs.