Unspoken Rhapsody: Female Erotic Countertransference and the Dissociation of Desire

Abstract

Why is so little written about the female analyst’s sexual desire? Presenting a case where an older, cisgendered, heterosexual female analyst is unmoored by erotic stirrings toward her younger, cisgendered, heterosexual male patient, de Peyer challenges cultural and gender prohibitions against the acknowledgment of female analytic erotic arousal. Can the female analyst be both maternal and sexual? Engaging the complexities of an intersubjective collision between the analyst’s desire and the patient’s apparent absence of desire, this paper explores the emergence of dissociative transference-countertransference dynamics, along with culturally embedded associations to gender, power, the incest taboo, and the potential for ethical boundary violation.

Keywords:

• female
• erotic
• countertransference
• desire
• prohibition

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ I will use the term countertransference to refer to any and all feelings stirred in the therapist, no matter the source.

² Lester et al. (1989) surveyed countertransference dreams among primarily senior analysts. Of 34 men’s dreams, 19 were erotic; of 7 dreams reported by women, only 2 were erotic (see Russ, 1993). Female analysts’ dreams, rather than revealing manifest sexual themes, depicted analysands intruding on the analyst’s private space (oblique symbolism here?).

³ From the mid 19th century Greek “erōs,”—“sexual love” +-ism.

⁴ Quote abbreviated by Becker in “The Gift of Fear” (De Becker, 1998).

⁵ See work of Benjamin, Dimen, Goldner, Harris, Chodorow and others.

⁶ See Lehrner and Yehuda (2018) work on epigenetic inheritance.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, New York, Annual Conference, 2019. I am grateful to Nancy Bravman, Stacy Malin, and Sandy Silverman for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janine de Peyer

Janine de Peyer, LCSW, is Faculty and Supervisor at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and at the Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center, where she serves on the Executive Committee. She is Associate Editor at Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and has published on transference/countertransference, eroticism, dissociation, and the functions of uncanny and intuitive communication within the psychoanalytic exchange. Janine grew up in London, has presented internationally, and is in private practice in Manhattan, where she integrates EMDR and creative visualization within a relational psychoanalytic framework.