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 International Psychoanalytical Association. Each volume presents a classic essay by Freud with commentaries by prominent psychoanalytic teachers and 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 Hernández, 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.