Thinking About Our Work: Response to Comments

Abstract

257 1 Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati, and Coordinator of Group Therapy, California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco. Correspondence should be addressed to Walter N. Stone, MD, 23 DeSilva Island Drive, Mill Valley, CA 94941. E-mail: w_stone@comcast.net. I was very pleased to read the responses to my Thinking About Our Work essay on analytic love. When I wrote my thoughts on this topic, I was focusing primarily on my sense that, at times, we alter the analytic frame in ways that are deemed inappropriate, such as giving advice or revealing something personal, which may include how we feel about a patient. Yet we do that out of genuine concern and caring for our patients. Fundamentally, we are not expecting anything in return, with the exception of seeing our patients benefit and grow. When I first read the responses to these thoughts, I wondered about the difference implied in “analytic” and “romantic” love and if the titles implied different concepts. J. Scott Rutan addresses the differences in a very nice manner as he contrasts Western romantic love with love as constructed in collective societies such as China. He adds and expands his view, “It is, rather, a deep affection for, knowledge of, and concern for one another.” This quotation includes my view of analytic love, with the exception of not expecting anything in return, and I think Rutan is implicitly saying that there is nothing expected in return. Further elaborating, Scott comments that if there is a sexual component, it is peripheral. I agree also with his particularly incisive comment that we often do not actually explore, in any depth, manifestations of love among members or directed at the therapist. Close ties between love and sexuality are threatening because they might lead to action. Carol Kramer Slepian’s response illustrates this point. She describes two members who developed romantic feelings toward one another, which eventually ended in marriage. During the couple’s courtship, though, the uninvolved members became distrustful. One member of the couple left the group; the other wished to remain.