Andrew Jamieson
February 13th 2021
Therapeutic Love – Goldmine or Minefield, Eros or Agape?
The Psychotherapeutic profession often uses numerous euphemisms to sidestep the word ‘love’. Unconditional positive regard, attuned responsiveness, animus / anima projection, I-thou relationships, erotic transference, primary self-object relatedness, are just a few of these euphemisms. In his talk Andrew Jamieson will explore the concept of ‘love’ within our profession with particular focus on how it affects our relationships with our clients. He will consider how ‘love’ impacted on the work of the earliest pioneers of Psychoanalysis, with reference to the work of Freud, Breuer, Jung, Ferenczi and Rogers. He will explore the more recent thoughts on the subject by Ian Suttie, Karen Maroda, Ethel Person, Harold Searles and David Mann, writers who seldom are included on our training syllabuses. He will look at both Agape love and Erotic love and how these two differing experiences can have a profound effect on our psychotherapeutic relationships. Andrew has interviewed over 25 therapists about this subject and these interviews have proved extremely revealing. Using these interviews and considering his own clinical experience he will examine the precarious field of erotic and romantic transference and countertransference, with particular reference to Carl Jung’s experience of this complicating element of his own practice and theory.