On Freud's "Observations on Transference-Love"

Plot

This is the third volume in the series "Contemporary Freud: Turning Points and Critical issues," published with the International Psychoanalytical Association. Each book in the series presents a classic essay by Freud and discussions of the essay by prominent psychoanalytic teachers and analysts who differ in emphases and who come from different theoretical backgrounds and geographical locations. "Observations on Transference-Love" may have been inspired, say the contributors, by the unfortunate emotional involvements of two of Freud's colleagues with female patients. In his paper, Freud speaks of the inevitability of "transference-love" in every well-conducted analysis, of its important therapeutic functions, and of its potential hazards. The book begins with an introduction by Ethel Spector Person. The contributors to this volume - Friedrich-Wilhelm Eickhoff, Robert S. Wallerstein, Roy Schafer, Max Hernandez, Betty Joseph, Merton Max Gill, Fidias Cesio, Jorge Canestri, Takeo Doi, and Daniel N. Stern - then provide striking commentaries on Freud's essay. They place the work in the context of Freud's evolving thinking; focus on what it tells us about love, female sexuality, and conventional morality; discuss the role of the therapist in the genesis of the patient's transference love; explore the differences between remembering, reliving, and enacting; and examine how Freud's theory has evolved in light of current developments in psychoanalytic thought. Transference love is discussed in the larger context of transference in general. The essays illuminate what continues to be a major problem in all modalities of psychotherapy: unfortunate, often tragic, enactments of erotic transference and countertransference.