Analytic Love and Power: Responsiveness and Responsibility

Abstract

This article discusses the profound responsibilities associated with the psychoanalyst's role, given the ways in which the structure of the psychoanalytic setting both stimulates and frustrates fantasies of romantic perfection. The analyst's responsibility begins with an awareness of the full extent of the seductive power inherent in the psychoanalytic structure. Against a background of the two defining dimensions of the treatment setting, mutuality and asymmetry, this article discusses the ways in which these dimensions intensify the experience and longing for intimate, sexual union.