Hans and Me: Transformation of Revulsion in the Countertransference Within an Analytic Therapy

Abstract

This is a case of a four-year psychoanalytic treatment of a 65-year-old gay man. The patient sought treatment due to persistent, severe symptoms of bereavement following the death, five years previously, of his lifelong partner. After a one-year period of impasse in the therapy, the analyst and patient formed a therapeutic connection through exploration of their shared sexual subjectivities and the patient's gifts to the analyst. The patient regained vitality and the analyst found himself changed.

KEYWORDS:

• anti-erotic transference
• erotic transference
• gift giving
• revulsion
• transference-countertransference
• geriatric psychotherapy
• psychoanalytic psychotherapy
• therapy with a gay man
• geriatric therapy

The author would like to thank Drs. Muriel Dimen, Jack Drescher, William Ansorge, and Susan Parlow for their thoughtful reading of earlier versions of this paper.