Dances of Desire: Commentary on Papers by Dianne Elise and Jonathan H. Slavin

Abstract

Using metaphoric dance imagery, the author playfully engages the theme of inhibition of desire through an audio-visual-kinetic listening style. She explores potential alternative self-states and dissociated self-other configurations between patient and analyst in the form of multiple dance “couplings.” The analyst's role in the awakening or inhibiting of his or her patient's sexual desire and personal agency is discussed, drawing on potential transference–countertransference configurations and the influence of shame, disempowerment, and stereotypes of gender and race on the formation of sexual identity. How does each patient call for her analyst to change? Will eroticism, dissociated rage, victimization, or betrayal find expression in Amanda's treatment once Slavin renounces his position of idealized holder of knowledge? How does Elise's exploration of the contrast between the female analyst's conventionally desexualized “analytic costume” and her patient's more colorful hyperbolic imagery of her sexuality, further the pursuit of liberation from culturally contextualized shame and devaluation of female sexuality? The author proposes a model of self-acceptance on the part of the analyst of the embodiment of her own fluctuations in sexual desire, along with openness to transference explorations, where relevant, about her own body.