NARCISSISTIC DYNAMICS IN SEXUAL RELATIONS HIPS BETWEEN THERAPIST AND FEMALE-PATIENT

Strong narcissistic longings on both sides are mostly underlying sexua l contact between therapist and female patient. For the therapist it m eans to find a compromise between acting out narcissistic grandiosity and fantasies of fusion with an early mother-object, and on the other hand the fear of symbiosis, which is mastered by rigid insisting in th e analytic setting, although having sexual contact at the same time. T his kind of ritual suggests a connection with the dynamics of sexual p erversion. Typically the patient shows a sexualization of early narcis sistic needs - often caused by a real sexual trauma in childhood -, wh ich are misinterpreted as sexual by the therapist. Although there is a collusion, it remains the therapists' responsibility to avoid the rea lization - sexual contact - of the transference-countertransference-re lationship.