A Female Analyst's Use of Desire

Narrative Research Into Erotic Counter‐transference in a Female Therapist–male Patient Encounter

“…Wittkin-Sasso (1991) notes that many authors dispute that erotic encounters occur within such dyads, because males fear that the voracious pre-Oedipal mother would engulf them or that they could passively identify with her. Schaverien (1995) considers there to be subtle social-cultural pressures on female therapists to minimize manifestations of erotic counter-transference.…”

Sexual attraction and phobic dread in the countertransference

“…Although in recent years we occasionally find papers involving fleeting reference to erotic countertransference material (e. g., Scharff, 1992;Weinstein, 1988;Wittkin-Sasso, 1991), the only substantial investigations of this topic of which I am aware are a truly remarkable and courageous paper written by Searles in 1959 and a very recent panel presentation by Kernberg (1992). The absence of papers reflects an implicit, pervasive opprobrium that is actually made explicit in a 1992 paper by Wolf that states unequivocally that a therapist's sexual arousal or attraction is always indicative of psychopathology, whether or not the erotic urges are acted upon.…”