Using the DMM–AAI to overcome ruptures in therapeutic alliance

This article discusses a university counselling case in which an Adult Attachment Interview based on the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM–AAI), was used to overcome ruptures in a therapeutic alliance. A female client in her thirties came to see the counsellor to change her workaholic lifestyle; however, she soon developed erotic transference towards the counsellor. Because of countertransference, the counsellor proposed termination too early which she almost accepted due to her difficulty in reflecting on her past, and the alliance was ruptured. However, the administration of the DMM–AAI allowed the client to gain awareness of the reason for her seeking to terminate her counselling early; that is, a fear of losing her counsellor, which she realised had been a recurring fear in her past relationships. It also allowed the counsellor to renew his empathy towards the client. The present article discusses the effects and features of the DMM–AAI that made it possible to overcome the ruptures in the therapeutic alliance and proposes that it would be interesting to explore how its use during the therapeutic process can facilitate reflective processes in both client and clinician, particularly when the therapeutic alliance is at risk.

The Erotics of Knowing: A Neglected Contribution to Analytic Erotism

An erotics of knowing is posited that comprises embodied aspects of psychological and emotional closeness, and derives not from transference dynamics but from psychological and emotional intimacy—both component and consequence of the analytic process. The experience of knowing and being known is invested with erotism via its interpenetrative and interreceptive aspects; regardless of gender, to know the other is to enter a hidden interior “space” that represents that person’s embodied inner world. Yet the interrogation of the intrinsic relationship between knowing and loving is stunningly absent from the psychoanalytic literature. This historical neglect is traced to a split in the discourse presaged by Freud’s essay on transference love, which distinguishes between the qualified reality of the erotic transference and the de-erotized but “real” construct of the “analytic love” relationship. A more recent split relocates erotism to the maternal transference, divesting it of aggression and oedipal sexuality. These splits constitute a vigorous collective defense against engaging with the erotics of knowing: from Oedipus to Genesis, our forbidden fruit.