ABSTRACT
This chapter extends the concept of acting out to include a more relational view of sexual behavior. Seen through the lens of attachment theory, the sexual acting out of a patient was both a renunciation and a preservation of relational processes originating in the early mother-child dyad. The patient, abandoned in childhood by a seductive mother, vacillated promiscuously between relationships that were rejecting or over-dependent. This failed sexual passion engendered a deep maternal passion in the analyst. The passionate affect and psychic aliveness of the analyst were essential in the patient’s achievement of new self experience and new relational connection.
