Learning About Love Through the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis

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Notes

¹Reading about Ms. L's history, it is obvious that asking her to participate in this article could be felt by her as yet another need to be filled in exchange for love. What are the emotional and psychological implications of even requesting that she contribute? She and I talked about these issues on several occasions. I gave her a number of opportunities to reflect on, and to withdraw from, the project. Ultimately, she decided to participate and gave her written consent.

As she has read different versions of this article, her responses have emerged in different forms. At times, she has still feared being used by me for my needs, at other times she has felt gratified by our respect and love for each other being so fully witnessed, and at still other times she has been afraid of being exposed. All the same, she has contemplated showing this essay to members of her family of origin for them to understand more fully what she has suffered in her childhood emotional conditioning. Writing together about our analytic work, as analyst and analysand, obviously provides both an opportunity for getting a larger view of our work together and a vulnerability for getting caught up in the old projective identifications. I think this is inevitable because of the emotional risks of writing about the treatment situation in such an open dialogue. And yet, I feel that Ms. L and I will find this work even more valuable over the years ahead, when her analysis has formally ended.