ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the internal and external pressures girls and women experience to limit their own power in order to avoid threatening men’s sense of potency. It explores the role of power and potency in the erotic dynamics between male-female partnerships and considers the ways these play out in the erotic transference and counter-transference for both members of the analytic dyad. Specifically, the chapter examines the ways in which some analysts may be aroused by a female analysand’s expression of gratitude, suffering and helplessness.
