PubMed · 3642744
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M Godard. 1986. [Acting out].. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3642744/
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The literature on erotic transference and countertransference between female analyst and male patient is reviewed and discussed. It is known that female analysts are less likely than their male colleagues to act out sexually with their patients. It has been claimed that a) male patients do not experience sustained erotic transferences, and b) female analysts do not experience erotic countertransferences with female or male patients. These views are challenged and it is argued that, if there is less sexual acting out by female analysts, it is not because of an absence of eros in the therapeutic relationship. The literature review covers material drawn from psychoanalysis, feminist psychotherapy, Jungian analysis, as well as some sociological and cultural sources. It is organized under the following headings: the gender of the analyst, sexual acting out, erotic transference, maternal and paternal transference, gender and power, countertransference, incest taboo--mothers and sons and sexual themes in the transference.
This paper illustrates the erotic transference of a male patient towards his female analyst and the pressures and resistances within the transference and counter-transference to act out sexually. The patient's desire to act out sexually is seen both as a form of repetition compulsion within the transference and, in its purposive aspect, as an expression of the patient's need to find a loving breast and an empathic father. The patient's confused sexual identity is seen as a narcissistic defence against the experience of unbeatable frustration in the pre-Oedipal stage. Through internalizing a new primal scene, the patient is able to separate from his past and to work through the Oedipus complex within the transference.
Unspoken actions between the therapist and the patient have major and often unconscious influences on the psychotherapeutic situation. Mutual transferences can bring about acting-out behaviors that portray transference wishes and defenses within both parties. Such actions tend to replace or overshadow verbalizing intrapsychic strife and in that sense can function as formidable resistance to therapeutic introspection. They also may represent behavioral attempts to communicate significant earlier experiences. Reflection on this dyadic interplay has led to contemporary treatment concepts. Enactment, actualization, and treatment misalliances are behavioral manifestations of urges, conflicts, and identifications and they appear most frequently during regressive periods in psychotherapy. Initially an enactment may include a component of the therapist's reciprocal behavior as a necessary feature of the process, prior to a fuller dynamic understanding and eventual definitive interpretation. Collusion by the therapist, through mutual and continuing acting out or through attempts to re-parent, will encourage antitherapeutic misalliances that can lead to continuing symptomatic behaviors and boundary violations. Continuing self-inquiry is essential to facilitate therapeutic change and we need to be aware that the principal analyzing device available to bring about positive change in our patients, is to be found within ourselves.