ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the psychoanalytic work with a young woman who had a diagnosis of severe borderline personality at the time of the referral. She quickly formed an erotic and idealising transference, which caused considerable difficulties in undertaking the analytic work. Despite this we were gradually able to identify two kinds of love: one that could be described as passionate and unrealistic, and the other as companionate and realistic. For Freud, the division into two contradictory states of mind occurs through a splitting process of the ego, whilst the concept of internal cohabitation conceives of two selves existing from birth. The tendency towards an idealising and erotic transference has been known in analytic literature since the publication of Studies on Hysteria (Freud with Breuer, 1895d) and 'Observations on transference-love'. In the analytic relationship it can also be very difficult for relational selves to negotiate and keep their bearings when both selves feel they love the analyst.
