too much the way Mom accused him of doing. But I know that isn't true. He was just a loving guy, a real hands-on- type guy. That's how he trained horses – talking to them softly, touching them, fondling them if you will. That's just how he was. There wasn't anything sexual about the way he touched me.”
However, again her resistance quickly gave way when I explained to her that it wasn’t so much a matter of her father's intentions or what he actually did, but how his touching affected her, especially as
*12 When I remained silent in accordance with standard therapeutic practice, Mrs. F continued: ”I may not be betraying him now but I have in the past and I can't imagine I won't want to again.”
From the very start of her analysis, Mrs. F slipped in numerous references such as this regarding her self- described “voracious sexuality.” She seemed to go to great pains and to take special pleasure in making it clear to me just how highly sexed she was. She said of herself “I guess I'm a, you know – a real nympho…” and on many occasion as she referred to herself as “a slut,” “a hussy,” “a real bitch-slut, “a bitch-in-heat,” etc. Such usages made sharp contrast with her otherwise dignified, ladylike, indeed aristocratic self-presentation. There was no question that these references were blatant attempts to be seductive with me. the overheard quarrel about it between her mother and father planted her mother's notion that it was wrongfully sexual in her mind.
Mrs. F readily accepted this interpretation. “If I'm twisted, it must be Mom who made me this way,” she said. She then launched into a lengthy list of grievances against her mother, all pertaining to her mother's teachings that sex was dirty and wrong and thus should not and could not be enjoyed. “I sure rebelled against that!” she said. “I adore sex.”
When I pointed out that she used the same word, ‘adore,’ in regard to her feelings toward horses, she quickly put the interpretations together: “I ‘adore’ sex and I ‘adore’ horses. I feel sexy riding horses and I like to ‘ride’ my lovers when I have sex. I like to ride their cocks and I like to ride their faces, too. In the dream I ride a big black horse, which could be Blackjack, and it was Blackjack, Dad, who first put me on a horse and taught me how to ride. I know having sex with Blackjack is wrong, so Blackjack breaks apart beneath me as I ride him. And then I come, just the way I do when I have sex with my lovers. I ride them till they come, till they ‘break.’ Then I come and break too. So there it is, at least the center of it.” At which point she turned her head toward me. “That's what you wanted me to see, isn't it?”
At the start of the next session, Mrs. F handed me a large manila envelope. When I asked her what it contained, she responded: “It's something we talked about. I thought you'd be interested in seeing it.”
Opening the envelope, I noticed Mrs. F observing me closely. Inside was the ‘art photograph’ she'd previously mentioned, the one of her in riding clothes, naked above the waist, staring seductively at the lens while bowing a taut riding crop between her hands.*13
TRANSFERENCE ISSUES ARISING IN THERAPY: One Monday morning Mrs. F arrived, flung off her coat, then, beaming, announced: “Seems on Friday our sons gave each other bloody noses.”*14 To this I promptly responded: 'Does this excite you in some way?' “Well, yes, actually it does,” she said. “It seems so… well, you know… intimate.” I suggested we try to analyze why she found a fistfight between our sons to be sexually stimulating. Mrs. F, intelligent and quick-witted as ever, immediately made the connection: “It's the blood, isn't it? The wound. The red jodhpurs. The flaming hood. Our flesh-and-blood bloodied each other, and that's like you and me having sex.”
The following week she came in with another prepared bombshell: “Guess what, Doctor? I've taken on a new lover. And he has the same first name as you. Now that must mean something, mustn't it?
Mrs. F, of course, knew perfectly well what it meant and seemed highly amused at my concern. “You think I'm doing a number on you, but it's really just a coincidence. He's so cute, this guy, that I decided I couldn’t deprive myself just because your names happen to be the same.”
Again we analyzed her statements. She had used the very same expression (‘deprive myself’) when I'd expressed doubts about undertaking her analysis. And I assured her that my concern was not over the coincidence of the names^15 but that by taking on a new lover without having first broken with C,
*13 At this point I should state that in all my years of practice I never worked with an analysand so intent on my seduction. Though training teaches us how to employ strong transference reactions in furtherance of analytic goals, it cannot fully prepare one for an onslaught of such intensity, especially when the analysand is extraordinarily attractive, experienced, and well tuned to her effect upon men. Furthermore, in the case under discussion, I was well warned by the analysand via her tale of her seduction of Dr. L. But despite my experience and training and the clear warning issued by the analysand herself, I had no adequate preparation for an offering such as the one described above, in which the analysand presented me with a recent photograph of herself half naked in a highly charged and bizarre erotic posture.
As mentioned, this offering was just one of several such demarches made by Mrs. F, nearly all of which occurred in the context of our probing of the meaning to her ‘sex dream.’ It was as if, the closer we came to a deep interpretation of her dream, the more compulsive became her attempts to seduce me.
These maneuvers usually took place at or near the beginning of our sessions. Mrs. F would introduce something provocative as if in an attempt to confuse me and throw the analysis off course. These transparent attempts to derail treatment were easily parried by ignoring the provocation or offering a quick and pointed interpretation. It soon became apparent that Mrs. F prepared these incitements in advance. When swiftly dealt with, she would settle down, ready to do the hard and painful work that is a requirement of a successful analysis.
*14 In fact, authorities at our sons' school had arranged a boxing match to settle a personal quarrel between them. betraying him in effect, she might be unconsciously courting danger.
She then imparted the following unexpected information: She had first met T at the same school reception where she'd approached me about her desire to undergo analysis. In fact, T was a teacher at our sons' school. After meeting him and hearing how much her sons liked him, she'd hired him to give her sons private coaching and tutoring.
In our next session, she described in detail how she'd decided that T, employed in this capacity, would make a good lover and how she'd initiated (i.e., seduced him into) an affair:
“I went out to our tennis court to watch him practice with my boys because they were proud of their progress and wanted me to see it for myself. It was a very hot afternoon. My boys and T, all three in shorts and stripped to the waist, were batting balls back and forth, really working up a sweat. So here's this really good-looking guy with the body of a Greek god! How could I resist? After my boys finished their lesson, they urged the two of us to play. ‘Come on, Mom!’ ‘Yeah, Mom, we know you're club champ, but I bet T can kick your butt!’ ‘Yeah, let's see who's better, Mom. Come on! Just one set, okay?’
“So I went down to the pool house, changed into tennis gear, then stepped onto the court. T's a terrific player. It was fun to play with him. Soon it was clear we were very much in tune. And with the boys there urging us on, cheering for him, clearly wanting him to win, all my competitive juices were aroused. I wanted to win, needed to, so I started playing really hard. And he, responding, quickly raised the level of his game.”
The tennis match, as she described it, was clearly foreplay for the sex that followed within the hour. Mrs. F was quick to grasp that much of her imagery – ‘in tune,’ ‘aroused,’ ‘juices,’ ‘playing hard,’ ‘raised the level’ – was highly sexual in nature. And with my assistance, she came to understand that the performance of such an extended act of foreplay in the presence of her sons was a provocation in itself.
'So how do you think all this relates to your dream?' I asked near the end of the session.
“I'm having sex in front of my sons.”
'And in the dream?'
Mrs. F shrugged. “I don't see any connection.”
I suggested we go back and reexamine the circumstances under which she first met T, at the same occasion, in fact within the same hour, that she first broached the possibility of analytic treatment with me.
I offered her the following interpretation:
'There were are, two men, both with the same first name. And the context in which you meet us is almost incestuous – my son and yours attend the same school. Within days you retain me as your analyst and retain T as your sons' coach. Then, while filling our sessions here three mornings a week with provocative sexual statements, setting upon my seduction, even going so far as to present me with an erotic photograph of yourself, you literally seduce this other man, my double so to speak, and in fact do so right in front of your sons. What's more, while this double seduction is going on – my ‘psychic seduction’ and T's literal seduction – one of your sons fights a boxing
