Table Of ContentON FREUD’S
“OBSERVATIONS ON TRANSFERENCE-LOVE”
CONTEMPORARY FREUD
Turning Points and Critical Issues
Series Editor: Gennaro Saragnano
IPA Publications Committee
Gennaro Saragnano (Rome), Chair; Leticia Glocer Fiorini (Buenos Aires), Consultant;
Samuel Arbiser (Buenos Aires); Paulo Cesar Sandler (São Paulo); Christian Seulin (Lyon);
Mary Kay O’Neil (Montreal); Gail S Reed (New York); Catalina Bronstein (London);
Rhoda Bawdekar (London), ex-officio as Publications Officer;
Paul Crake (London), IPA Executive Director (ex officio)
On Freud’s “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”
edited by Joseph Sandler
Freud’s “On Narcissism: An Introduction”
edited by Joseph Sandler, Ethel Spector Person, Peter Fonagy
On Freud’s “Observations on Transference-Love”
edited by Ethel Spector Person, Aiban Hagelin, Peter Fonagy
On Freud’s “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming”
edited by Ethel Spector Person, Peter Fonagy, Sérvulo Augusto Figueira
On Freud’s “A Child Is Being Beaten”
edited by Ethel Spector Person
On Freud’s “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego”
edited by Ethel Spector Person
On Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia”
edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini, Thierry Bokanowski, Sergio Lewkowicz
On Freud’s “The Future of an Illusion”
edited by Mary Kay O’Neil & Salman Akhtar
On Freud’s “Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence”
edited by Thierry Bokanowski & Sergio Lewkowicz
On Freud’s “Femininity”
edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini & Graciela Abelin-Sas Rose
On Freud’s “Constructions in Analysis”
edited by Sergio Lewkowicz & Thierry Bokanowski, with Georges Pragier
On Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”
edited by Salman Akhtar & Mary Kay O’Neil
On Freud’s “Negation”
edited by Mary Kay O’Neil & Salman Akhtar
On Freud’s “On Beginning the Treatment”
edited byChristian Seulin & Gennaro Saragnano
ON FREUD’S
“OBSERVATIONS ON
TRANSFERENCE-LOVE”
Edited by
Ethel Spector Person
Aiban Hagelin
Peter Fonagy
Series Editor
Gennaro Saragnano
CONTEMPORARY FREUD
Turning Points and Critical Issues
KARNAC
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Sigmund Freud Copyrights; The Institute
of Psychoanalysis, London; The Hogarth Press; and Basic Books for permission
to reprint “Further Recommendations in the Technique of Psycho-Analysis:
Observations on Transference-Love” as published in Sigmund Freud, The
Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 12, trans. and
ed. by James Strachey, Hogarth Press, London; and in Sigmund Freud, The
Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 2, authorized translation under the
supervision of Joan Riviere, published by Basic Books, Inc., by arrangement
with the Hogarth Press Ltd. and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis, London.
Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a divison of HarperCollins Publishers,
Inc.
First published in 1993 by Yale University
This edition published in 2013, in assocation with
The International Psychoanalytical Association, by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 1993, 2013 Yale University
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78220-086-4
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
Contents
Preface
ETHEL SPECTOR PERSON, I vii
AlBAN HAGELIN, AND PETER FONAGY
Introduction
ETHEL SPECTOR PERSON I I
PART ONE OBSERVATIONS ON TRANSFERENCE-LOVE
(1915)
SIGMUND FREUD/ 15
PART TWO DISCUSSION OF "OBSERVATIONS ON·
TRANS FERENCE-LOVE"
A Rereading of Freud's "Observations on Transference-Love"
FRIEDRICH-WILHELM EICKHOFF I 33
On Transference Love: Revisiting Freud
ROBERT S. WALLERSTEIN I 51
Five Readings of Freud's "Observations on Transference-Love"
ROY SCHAFER I 15
vi I Contents
Footnote to a Footnote to "Observations on Transference-Love"
MAX HERNANDEZ I 96
On Transference Love: Some Current Observations
BETTY JOSEPH I 102
One-Person and Two-Person Perspectives: Freud's
"Observations on Transference-Love"
MERTON MAX GILL I 114
The Oedipal Tragedy in the Psychoanalytic Process: Transference Love
FIDIAS CESIO I 130
A Cry of Fire: Some Considerations on Transference Love
JORGE CANESTRI I 146
Amae and Transference Love
T AKEO DOl I 165
Acting versus Remembering in Transference Love and Infantile Love
DANIEL N. STERN I 172
Contributors I 187
Index I 189
Preface
This is the third volume of the series "Contemporary Freud: Thrning Points
and Critical Issues," following On Freud's "Analysis Terminable and Inter
minable" and Freud's "On Narcissism: An Introduction." The series, first
conceptualized by Robert Wallerstein during his presidency of the Interna
tional Psychoanalytical Association, was designed to improve intellectual
communication among centers of psychoanalysis in different parts of the
world.
Each volume opens with one of Freud's classic papers, followed by contri
butions from distinguished psychoanalytic teachers and theoreticians of di
verse theoretical positions and geographic locations. In addition to reviewing
the literature he or she deems pertinent, each participant has been asked to
extract the essay's important and enduring contributions, to clarify ambi
guities, to establish some line of continuity between the original paper and
current issues and concerns, and to express the reviewer's own views as if he
or she were actually teaching the paper. These texts have already proved
useful as teaching adjuncts around the world. It has also been our hope that
each reader will be drawn into a personal dialogue with each of the contribu
tors.
vii
viii I Ethel Spector Person, Aiban Hagelin, Peter Fonagy
The choice of Freud's paper and of the modem contributors to each volume
is made by the IPA Committee on Publications, based on recommendations
from a large advisory committee and in consultation with IPA president
Joseph Sandler. The current Committee on Publications, consisting of Ethel
Person, chairperson; Aiban Hagelin; and Peter Fonagy; is indeed grateful for
the input of the Advisory Board. The contributors, in tum, have been gen
erous and extremely successful in their participation in this project. As in the
former volumes, we believe that the excellent results are self-evident.
Special thanks go to Valerie Tufnell, administrative director of the IPA,
and Janice Ahmed, IPA publications administrator, for their organizational
skills and perseverance in coordinating an international venture such as this.
In addition, we want to give special thanks to Dr. Person's administrative
assistant, Jessica Bayne, who has been painstaking in tracking deadlines and
manuscripts. Gladys Topkis and her associates at Yale University Press are
superb, diligent, and tactful editors. Their editorial input has been of the
highest quality, and their patience and care in bringing this volume into
existence must be lauded.
ETHEL SPECTOR PERSON
AlBAN HAGELIN
PETER FONAGY
Introduction
ETHEL SPECTOR PERSON
Today, with psychoanalysis so well established and knowledge (as well as
folklore) about it so widespread, many people believe that patients are "sup
posed to" fall in love with their analysts. But although it is common enough
for patients to fall in love with their doctors, the reasons why they do so are
not intuitively obvious.
Freud was the fii'St to describe transference love, to theorize about its
precursors in our developmental lives and its meaning in the psychoanalytic
process, and to make a connection between transference love and real-life
love. But an understanding of the erotic transference did not spring full
blown, even to Freud. The first story of transference love to come to his
attention concerned the therapy of his mentor and collaborator Josef Breuer
with Anna 0., and it was told to him by Breuer. Although their conversations
about Anna 0. took place in 1882, Freud only gradually appreciated their full
significance, embodying his insights in the 1915 paper "Observations on
Transference-Love."
The "talking cure," an early antecedent of psychoanalysis, developed
more or less by accident in the course of Anna 0. 's therapy. Anna 0., a
woman with many hysterical symptoms, initiated the process of a kind of free
