ON 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