The healing power of love’
The literary/analytic bond of marriage in Freud’s essay on Gradiva
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8970933 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dorit Ashur (Department of General and Comparative LiteratureHebrew University of Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv Institute for Contemporary PsychoanalysisHarakefet 13/6 Ir‐GanimJerusalemIsrael96505, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 90 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 595-612 |
| Publication date | 2009-04-15 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7578 • E-ISSN: 1745-8315 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00153.x |
| PMID | 19580599 |
| OpenAlex | W2140278616 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 9 |
Freud 's declared position regarding the management of 'transference love' advocated 'abstinence', objectivity and even 'emotional coldness in the analyst'. However, his essay on Jensen's Gradiva reveals an identification with an involved and responsive 'maternal' analytic position associated with theorists such as Ferenczi, Balint and Winnicott. These theorists attribute the origins of transference love to the pre-oedipal stage, shaping their analytic model on the basis of the early relationship with the mother. Freud generally had difficulty identifying with such a position, since it entailed addressing his own inner feminine aspects. Yet a literary analysis of his 'Gradiva' reveals this stance in his textual performance, i.e. in the ways in which he reads and retells Jensen's story. Freud 's narration not only expresses identification with Zoe, the female protagonist, but also idealizes her 'therapeutic' conduct, which is closer in spirit to that of object-relations theorists. His subtext even implies, however unintended, that an ideal treatment of transference love culminates in a psychical 'marriage' bond between the analytic couple, a metaphor used by Winnicott to describe the essence of the mother-baby (analyst/patient) bond. Freud 's reading process is itself analogous to Zoe's 'therapeutic' conduct, in that both perform a creative and involved interaction with the text/patient
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| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,27 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2020 (6) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |