Unspoken Rhapsody: Female Erotic Countertransference and the Dissociation of Desire

Abstract

Why is so little written about the female analyst’s sexual desire? Presenting a case where an older, cisgendered, heterosexual female analyst is unmoored by erotic stirrings toward her younger, cisgendered, heterosexual male patient, de Peyer challenges cultural and gender prohibitions against the acknowledgment of female analytic erotic arousal. Can the female analyst be both maternal and sexual? Engaging the complexities of an intersubjective collision between the analyst’s desire and the patient’s apparent absence of desire, this paper explores the emergence of dissociative transference-countertransference dynamics, along with culturally embedded associations to gender, power, the incest taboo, and the potential for ethical boundary violation.