Transference and Countertransference in Sport Psychology Service Delivery: Part II. Two Case Studies on the Erotic

Abstract

In Part II, we present two case studies of erotic transference and countertransference in sport psychology service delivery. We interviewed two seasoned practitioners, both with long histories of working with athletes. These sport psychologists represent two extremes of the spectrum when encountering the erotic in service delivery. One participant's story is about denial, suppression, and repression of anything that hints of the erotic in practitioner-client relationships. The other sport psychologist's story is about a nearly unbridled reveling in the erotic with a client. The practitioners are easy to condemn, one for ignorance and lack of awareness of self and others, the other for adolescent fantasies and objectification of his client. But those responses are facile and uncharitable. We present these two cases as examples, albeit extreme ones, of how truly complex the erotic is in service delivery. Their stories illustrate, in sometimes painful and graphic ways, what it is to be human, all-too-human, in our encounters with the people we serve.

Lisa M. Stevens and Mark B. Andersen, School of Human Movement, Recreation and Performance and the Centre for Ageing, Rehabilitation, Exercise and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.

We would like to thank Dr. Harriet Speed and Dr. G. B. Giles for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.