Erotic countertransference 

 
Transference​: ​bringing unconscious layers of a past relationship into the clinical relationship 
 
Countertransference​: ​Differentiating what the client evokes in the therapist from what the 
therapist evokes in the client (transference). Often part of a historical understanding that the 
therapist is to remain absolutely neutral and that countertransference is unhealthy and to be 
controlled or thought away.  
 
Parallel process​: ​overlaying one way of relating into another (often bringing therapist-client 
transference-countertransference into the supervisory relationship) 
 
“Clearly, we are still quaking from (and recovering from the trauma of) the 
classical depriving stance of abstinence, neutrality, and anonymity, whether 
occurring in our own personal treatments, supervisions, or other aspects of 
training. We can be tempted to overcorrect by emphasizing the mutual 
dimension of the analytic frame. It is, however, an oversimplification of the 
analytic process and contract.” ​(Celenza 2014, 73) 
 
The interaction spectrum ​(based on Bolognini 1994) 
 
  Erotised  Erotic  Affectionate  Loving 
Psychoanalytic stage psychotic   neurotic  immature oedipal  mature oedipal 
(paranoid- schizoid)  (depressive) 
Treated as... ... lover  ... if lover  ... if wants to be lover  ... if could be 
lover 
Verbal Demands “Don’t you want to  “Why are you  “If I treat you specially  “Do you already 
sleep with me?”  leaving me to see  will you treat me  know I really 
other clients?”  specially too?”  care for you?” 

Enactments  Winking lasciviously  Holding hands  Blowing a kiss cheekily  Hugging 

sensually  wholeheartedly 
 
The developmental spectrum ​(cf. Fonagy 2008) 
 
  Newborn  Infant  Child  Adult  (Religious Ideal) 
Key number  One  Two  Three  Many  (All-One) 

Primal relation  Me against   Mother as  Father as   (Basic assumption  (Man-God-Man) 
the world  other  rival  groups) 

Relational Narcissistic  Object-  Oedipal  (Group relations)  (Agape / Trinitarian 

Frame  relation  perichoresis /  
Typical Omnipotence  Splitting  Projective  (Social structures)  Bodhisattvic compassion 
Defence Identification  Brahman-Atman) 

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Consider the relation between different types of relationships 
● how early (maternal, pre-genital) relationships may impact later (sexual, erotic) 
relationships, and vice-versa.  
● how these relationships may affect the clinical relationship and vice versa.  
 
Is it really a problem or is it a tool? 
 
“In every analysis there must be moments of love” ​(Etchegoyen 1991) 
 
“Repetition may also be a re-creation, an imaginative reorganization and 
elaboration of the early, life-giving love experiences—troublesome, frustrating, 
and full of conflict as most of them have been. “ ​(Loewald 2000) 
 
“Although prior relationships and the current relational context strongly 
influence the emergence of desire, it is key to recognize the foundational 
non-relationality of erotic desire. In my view, we desire … and then seek objects 
for our desire. Our relational history shapes our desires but does not account for 
them.” ​(Marshall 2010) 
 
“Consciousness is our protection against falling into the soup with our patients. 
Consciousness can make a container where we neither have to act out nor 
theorize away the bindings with our analysands.” ​(Ulanov 2009) 
 
Questions to ask ourselves as chaplains 
 
➔ Why can’t we be lovers? When, for me, would words not be enough? Was I behaving with 
[the patient’s] best interests in mind? What past relationships does this evokes in you—as 
a parent, lover, child, therapist? ​(Celenza 2014) 
◆ ”I am many things to you, and I don’t want to invalidate any one of them.”  
◆ “I’ll let you know this is a game you need. We’ll talk about it.” 
➔ What is my desire, what is its detail and nuance? What is it in its physical and emotional 
depths? ​(Marshall 2010) 
➔ What is the psychic content stirred in me by erotic attraction, to be familiar with it, so it 
doesn’t sabotage our work with our analysands. What has been my experience with this 
electricity, this setting something in motion? What is my desiring like and what is it for? 
What dream images and imaginative symbols convey to us the meaning and the instinct in 
our erotic attractions and their spiritual pull? ​(Ulanov 2009) 
 
   

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What to look out for  
 
[The erotic is part of the picture of who we are as persons in relation, like a spoke 
in a wheel; to blow up or ignore or push aside the possibility of asking the 
question deforms the wheel.] 
“To the extent that these self-states are dissociated, repudiated [...] they, when 
enlivened, are characterized by a feeling of drivenness, ​compulsion​, or feeling out 
of control as they push for expression, often culminating in an outwardly 
inexplicable crush or infatuation with a lover who seems to represent all that one 
has tried to repudiate or disavow.” ​(Celenza 2014) 
 
“When we sense that ​something is off​ in our affective response to our patients it 
is time to talk things out with colleagues. After such a collegial process we may 
develop some level of personal coherence incorporating fuller understanding of 
our inner passions. The time for this is before we open up a discussion with our 
patients. When both participants are grappling with deep unexpressed emotional 
desires or fears, it is likely that the therapist’s attempt to talk about these things 
in the intimacy of the clinical hour will lead to emotional disturbance. We need 
some mastery of any unarticulated passions in order to safely work with those 
who come to us as clients or patients.” ​(Marshall 2010) 
 
“In regard to defences, the question is ​whether we are to be ruled by them or 
whether we can flexibly use them​, in the haste and urgency of everyday life.” 
(Loewald 2000, 561) 
 
References 
 
Bolognini, Stefano. 1994. “Transference: Erotised, Erotic, Loving, Affectionate.” ​The International 
Journal of Psychoanalysis​ 75 (1): 73–86. 
Celenza, Andrea. 2014. ​Erotic Revelations: Clinical Applications and Perverse Scenarios.​ London; 
New York: Routledge. 
Etchegoyen, R. Horacio. 1991. ​The Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique​. London: Karnac. 
Fonagy, Peter. 2008. “A Genuinely Developmental Theory of Sexual Enjoyment and Its 
Implications for Psychoanalytic Technique.” ​Journal of the American Psychoanalytic 
Association​ 56 (1): 11–36. 
Marshall, Karol A. 2010. “Forbidden Talk: Commentary on Article by Andrea Celenza ‘The Guilty 
Pleasure of Erotic Countertransference: Searching for Radial True.’” ​Studies in Gender 
and Sexuality​ 11 (4): 184–91. 
Loewald, Hans W. 2000. ​The Essential Loewald Collected Papers and Monographs​. Hagerstown, 
MD: University Publishing Group. 
Ulanov, Ann Belford. 2009. “Countertransference and the Erotic.” ​Journal of Religion and Health 
48 (1): 90–96. 

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