Chapter 3.Sexual Boundary Violations
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Excerpt
The transgression of professional boundaries in the form of analyst-analysand sexual involvement is a particularly disturbing illustration of how difficult it is for analysts to keep their own needs out of the analytic situation. As noted in the discussion of Ferenczi in Chapter 2, many individuals who choose careers as psychoanalysts or psychotherapists feel they were insufficiently loved as children, and they may unconsciously hope that providing love for their patients will result in their being idealized and loved in return. In this manner, analysts may regulate their self-esteem through their work with patients (Celenza 2007; Finell 1985; Gabbard 1995c, 2003). In attempting to meet their patients’ needs, analysts may in fact be meeting their own needs. As Robert Winer (1994) observed, the desire to cure and the desire to be cured are “two sides of a very thin coin” (p. 186).
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