ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the case study of Frank. Frank was understandably at first untrusting as his therapist, and did not share a “secret” that was making him feel very anxious. He talked at first about the history of women and girlfriends with whom he had had relationships before he met and married his wife. The extent of Frank’s relationship with his mother took a long time to emerge. He described their relationship both when he was an adolescent, and as an adult married man, as a “partnership”. The matter of this illegitimate relationship with the exclient represented the greatest struggle that the therapeutic dyad endured, and involved many hours of debate. The therapy endured partially because real relationship was very robust, despite the struggle and the concomitant negative transference that played out alongside this struggle. Frank feels that the other great gain of psychotherapy is around the movement in his attachment schema from insecure–ambivalent attachment towards secure attachment.
