Therapists Who Have Sex with Their Patients by Strean Herbert S.;

Author:Strean, Herbert S.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

ASSESSMENT OF ROSLYN'S THERAPY

Using Fine's (1982) "analytic ideal" to assess Roslyn Mason's progress in therapy, I felt that although she was much more genuinely loving, there was still some unresolved hatred in her toward parental introjects. Her sexual life and her role in her family and in society improved a great deal. As we noted in the termination phase, Roslyn was not able to communicate with a wide range of emotions. She tended to inhibit many of her affects and left treatment with some remaining arrogance and a tendency to intellectualize. I was not fully confident that she could sustain her therapeutic gains nor was I sure her marriage would continue to be mutually satisfactory.

One opinion, in an article "Physicians, Heal Thyselves," by Barbra Streisand (1992), producer and director of the film, The Prince of Tides, defends the character Dr. Susan Lowenstein, whom she portrayed in the movie. Dr. Lowenstein did have a sexual liaison with her patient's brother, Tom Wingo, and in describing Dr. Lowenstein's personality, Streisand writes:

She is also a woman with her own problems. I chose to play the character of Lowenstein because she is a wounded healer. I know she exists, this woman capable of healing others yet needing help herself. Imperfect, human, like the rest of us. Where is it written that doctors have to be perfect, have to be gods? (p. 14)

In another point of view that pertains to Roslyn's liaison with Doug as essentially motivated by what Gabbard (1991) has referred to as "the love cure fantasy," Gabbard suggests:

A recurrent theme in female professionals who have become involved in unethical sexual conduct is a powerful and pervasive fantasy that love is curative The scenario frequently begins as a rescue attempt and is then transformed into a misguided love affair.... [The female therapist] unconsciously believes that she can give the patient the nurturance that she failed to receive from her mother

Psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic investigation of therapists in this situation often reveals an overidentification with the patient. Many of these therapists feel they, too, were victimized by abusive or neglectful parents when they were children. The therapist's overzealous rescue of the patient and subsequent lovesickness may symbolically represent an effort to give the patient the love that the therapist did not receive as a child. Thus, the patient's and the therapist's need become tragically confused....

A female clinician is often drawn to [her male patients with whom she has sexual liaisons] with an unconscious fantasy that her love and attention will somehow influence this "essentially decent" young man. (pp. 1-3)

What Roslyn Mason learned is that a "love cure" is indeed a fantasy that needs to be understood rather than acted out.

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