ABSTRACT
This chapter contains many of Mannie Ghent's most original and radical insights, but it also expresses the unique form of his thought process: a blend of his own far-reaching aesthetics and passionate convictions with the more recognizable clinical thinking of other psychoanalysts. The author was in the analysis with Mannie during the period when he conceived this essay and first presented it at the New York University Postdoctoral Psychology Program. The signature idea was that of the ever-ready look-alike, something that both represents and conceals a suppressed longing by producing a facsimile version of it. Or, as he expressed it so evocatively, the "defensive mutant". Some of the more useful understanding Mannie contributes here is transmitted through his illustrations of how patients may cast the analyst in the complementary role of sadist, seeing his power as the real occasion for activating the patient's dread.
