Jody Messler Davies

Falling in Love with Love Oedipal and Postoedipal Manifestations of Idealization, Mourning, and Erotic Masochism

The author, reconsidering the concept of the Oedipus complex, attempts to reestablish its significance as a major developmental milestone, while at the same time disentangling it from any linear assumptions regarding sexual orientation or object choice. A postoedipal phase of development is suggested in which the emphasis on romantic perfection and idealization of the love object, endemic to oedipal processes, is transformed and intimacy and mutual psychic and emotional interpenetrability become the defining features. Oedipal and postoedipal forms of romantic relatedness are always viewed as functioning dialectically, in mutually enriching and invigorating synergy. Specific transference—countertransference manifestations of the transition from primarily oedipal to primarily postoedipal forms of engagement are considered, with special attention given to the notion of “oedipal victors” and “oedipal losers.” Aspects of erotic masochism related to this transitional phase of development are also discussed. A lengthy case example of an erotic impasse between a female analyst and a female patient is offered as an illustration of some of these concepts.

Transformations of Desire and Despair Reflections on the Termination Process from a Relational Perpective

This paper revisits the case of “Karen” (“Whose Bad Objects Are We Anyway? Repetition and Our Elusive Love Affair with Evil,” PD 14/6) eight years after the time period described in the earlier paper, and uses this case material as a backdrop for discussing a relational reformulation of the termination process. The paper posits that an analysis conducted around a model of mind that holds multiple self–other configurations as the fundamental organizing structures needs to take these self–other configurations into account in ending an intensive treatment. Therefore termination becomes, from this perspective, a series of endings between multiple self–other dyads that have emerged during the treatment process. Extended clinical material is provided to illustrate this point of view. * This paper is the second in a series of papers for which readers are invited to submit short discussions of two to five double-spaced pages, or questions that they would like to ask the author. A selection of these responses, as well as the authors reactions, will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. All submissions should be dated on or before April 1, 2006, and mailed to the address printed at the back of this journal.

EROTIC OVERSTIMULATION AND THE CO-CONSTRUCTION OF SEXUAL MEANINGS IN TRANSFERENCE-COUNTERTRANSFERENCE EXPERIENCE

This paper attempts to explore the ways in which Western child-rearing practices do not provide an early interpersonal experience in which infantile, sexual, or sensual-erotic experience is held, contained, and given meaning within a safe parent—child dyad. It is the author’s basic premise that this normative developmental process fosters a dissociation of unformulated aspects of early sexual and sensual-erotic experience, leaving much of the experience ensconced in unsymbolized and therefore relatively inchoate image, sensation, and affect. The impact of such a dissociation on the patient—analyst relationship is explored, specifically at times when sexual or erotic material begins to impact upon transference-countertransference processes. An extended clinical example is provided.

The Times We Sizzle, and the Times We Sigh: The Multiple Erotics of Arousal, Anticipation, and Release

This paper explores the perspective that an optimal degree of sexual frustration is an absolutely necessary and irreducible dimension of sexual excitement and pleasure. The pleasure, in fact, is predicated on actual enjoyment of the frustration, of being able to tolerate mounting bodily arousal, excitement, and tension without any guarantee of immediate satisfaction and release. The author explores the particular object relational implications of this unique aspect of sexual experience, elaborating a model that suggests two different interacting but separate subsystems of erotic fantasy, in interaction with very different self/ other configurations. The first of these self/other organizations is organized and defined by moments of sexual arousal and yearning, whereas the second occurs around those defined by satisfaction, pleasure, and release. An extended clinical example is provided. Dr. Davies has written on the topics of trauma, dissociation, multiplicity of self- organization, as well as a series of papers on sexual and erotic aspects of transference/counter-transference process.

Reflections on Oedipus, Post-Oedipus, and Termination: Commentary on Paper by Steven Cooper

In this discussion the author reflects on some similarities and differences between Steven Coopers paper and her own and offers some additional thoughts on oedipal and postoedipal processes that become highlighted during the termination phase of analytic treatment.

From Oedipus Complex to Oedipal Complexity: Reconfiguring (Pardon the Expression) the Negative Oedipus Complex and the Disowned Erotics of Disowned Sexualities

This paper proposes a contemporary rendering of the Oedipus Complex as key to understanding an individual’s unique erotic signature. Conceived in terms of its complexity as opposed to a fixed and rigid complex and ridded of its hetereonormative biases, Oedipal complexity becomes a royal road to unlocking erotic inhibitions and potentiating sensual expansiveness. The theory is rooted in a multiple self state model of mind with an emphasis on conflicting systems of early internalized object relations. Two extended clinical examples are offered in an attempt to further explicate this point of view.

My Enfant Terrible is Twenty: A Discussion of Slavin's and Gentile's Retrospective Reconsideration of “Love in the Afternoon”

The following is a response to papers by Jonathan H. Slavin, Ph.D., ABPP, and Jill Gentile, Ph.D., which both discuss my 1994 paper “Love in the Afternoon: A Relational Reconsideration of Desire and Dread in the Countertransference,” almost twenty years after its original publication in Psychoanalytic Dialogues. I begin with some retrospective thoughts of my own about this controversial paper, and then respond to interpretations of the paper offered by Slavin and Gentile. I conclude with my own thoughts about their original ideas and elaborations on the subject of erotic countertransference.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE EVERYTHING (TO EVERYONE): THE UNCONSCIOUS REALITIES AND FANTASIES OF PSYCHIC TRUTH AND CHANGE

This paper explores the psychoanalyst’s dilemmas in treating a man who came for analysis as a self-identified compulsive liar. The decision as to whether or not to treat this man, and how to do so without getting caught up in a web of deceit and manipulation, raises issues about the nature of unconscious fantasy and its relationship to psychic truth. Therapeutic action as it involves the activation of multiple internal self–other configurations and their psychodynamic relationship to each other is also explored.

Love Never Ends Well: Termination as the Fate of an Illusion: Commentary on Papers by Jill Salberg and Sue Grand

The following is a discussion of the papers by Jill Salberg and Sue Grand on the topic of psychoanalytic termination. The discussion focuses on the idiosyncratic nature of the psychoanalytic relationship and the particular nature of its ending, some similarities between the end of analytic love and the loss of love in every day life, problems with analyst initiated terminations, and the transgressive nature of termination and analytic creativity. There is a discussion of the cases presented by each of the authors.

Dialogues on Sexuality In Development and Treatment

The evolution of a relational perspective has done much to change psychoanalytic thinking about the processes of mutual influence in human relating, including that between parent and child, patient and analyst. Beginning with excerpts from Oxenhandlers recent book, The Eros of Parenthood, this panel explores the dynamics of sexual experiencing and sexual influence between parents and children and, in parallel fashion, between analysts and patients. The discussion addresses the ways in which the emergence and handling of powerful sexual forces can be developmentally affirming or, depending on the ways they are managed, violating, both in the family and in treatment.