ABSTRACT
There are those who assume that there are inherent contradictions in charging fees for psychotherapy and there are those would not hold any contradictions to be inherent in charging fees. The process of psychotherapy may entail, for the psychotherapist, feelings which are anything but beatific, such as inadequacy, impotence, frustration, rage, shame and guilt. The difficulties addressed in psychotherapy do have their social and family context as well as their dynamics in analysis. Treatment itself is a social institution and may, including issues of payment, be the more effective psychotherapy for consideration of such matters. There is how much more some patients pay for love than just in fees and how this may have the purpose of neutralizing love in a narcissistic way. Many find it hard to accept a gift if they do not have the means to reciprocate with something of equivalent value, in the ambivalent spirit of the Potlach.
