On Freud's Observations On Transference-Love

This is the third volume in the series Contemporary Freud: Turning Points and Critical Issues, published for the InternationalPsychoanalytical Association. Each volume presents a classic essay by Freud with commentaries by prominent psychoanalytic teachersand analysts from different theoretical backgrounds and geographical locations.Observations on Transference-Love may have been inspired, say the contributors, by the unfortunate emotional involvements of two of Freud's colleagues with female patients. In his paper, Freud speaks of the inevitability of transference-love in every well-conducted analysis, its important therapeutic functions, and its potential hazards.The contributors to this volume - Ethel Spector Person, Friedrich-Wilhelm Eickhoff, Robert S. Wallerstein, Roy Schafer, Max Hernandez, Betty Joseph, Merton Max Gill, Fidias Cesio, Jorge Canestri, Takeo Doi, and Daniel N. Stern - place in the context of his evolving thinking; focus on what it tells us about love, female sexuality, and conventional morality; discuss the role of the therapist in the genesis of the patient's transference love; explore the differences between remembering, reliving, and enacting; and examine Freud's theory in light of current developments in psychoanalytic thought. Transference love is discussed in the larger context of transference in general. The essays illuminate a persistent problem in all modalities of psychotherapy: unfortunate, often tragic, enactments of erotic transference and countertransference.This volume also includes the original essay by Freud.