Dianne Elise

Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California · Personal/Supervising Analyst and Faculty

I favor an explicit retaining of the erotic in our developing view of how the analytic relationship works. I emphasize that an invitation is issued to an embodied experience of maternal eroticism (Kristeva, 2014), where an atmosphere of libidinal energy is a crucial aspect in enlivening--“vitalizing” (Alvarez, 2012)--the intersubjective field. When...

archivo índice genral índice por autores índice temático número actual Sexo y vergüenza: la inhibición de los deseos femeninos Publicado en la revista nº032 Autor: Elise, Dianne "Sex & shame: The inhibition of female desires" fue publicado originariamente en el Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association, 56 (1): 73-98. Traducido y publicado con...

In this essay, I consider the terrain of erotic embodiment within the analytic field, interweaving Winnicott’s emphasis on the psyche-soma with a Freudian focus on embodied libidinal life.

I believe that the practice of psychoanalysis is an erotic endeavor. My reader may feel taken aback. What do I mean by this statement? I realize that the word ‘erotic’ with its specific connotation of sexuality elicits both excitement and uneasiness. In contrast, analysts seem to be comfortable with the term Eros, understood to mean a generalized l...

We have been listening to innovative presentations by Dr. Nathans and Dr. Seidel that offer cutting edge thinking about conceptualizations of the oedipal complex and triadic structuring for clinical work with people whose identities and relational configurations do not fit into the traditional Oedipus model of the mother/father/child triad. Pursuin...

This paper discusses the pain of oedipal exclusion, especially in relation to the felt loss of the maternal figure. When too acute, this loss may be defended against by omnipotent defenses of disavowal and evasion of reality—a perverse structuring of the mind. In clinical work with such a person as an adult, sexualization of the dyadic treatment re...

Elise’s original contribution centers on the mutually reinforcing relationship between erotic and creative energies. Erotic embodiment is given context within a contemporary model of clinical process based in analytic field theory and highlighting Winnicott. Clinical material brings theory alive giving clinicians an explicit picture of how they mig...

This chapter describes how males, like females, have an early experience in relation to the nursing mother of being receptive to bodily and psychic penetration. Within the reciprocal engagement of maternal eroticism, male (as well as female) infants can enjoy the stimulating experience of being penetrated. The mother, in penetrating, is erotically...

Masochistic submission in women-- a “failure to thrive”—is approached from the perspective of undermined female desire. Masochism is viewed as a disorder of desire. A deflated sense of subjectivity can lead to a propensity for masochistic submission—a symptomatic expression of an insecure oedipal attachment. As the expression of a felt need to secu...

With Kristeva’s concept of maternal eroticism (2014) as starting point, the “multiverse” of mother/child erotic sensibilities—the dance of the semiotic chora—is explored and a parallel engagement proposed within the analytic dyad. The dance of psychoanalysis is not the creative product of the patient’s mind alone. Clinical work invites, requires, a...

With Kristeva’s concept of maternal eroticism (2014) as starting point, the “multiverse” of mother/child erotic sensibilities—the dance of the semiotic chora—is explored and a parallel engagement proposed within the analytic dyad. The dance of psychoanalysis is not the creative product of the patient’s mind alone. Clinical work invites, requires, a...

Julia Kristeva (2014) offers us an evocative pairing: “Reliance, or maternal eroticism.” The relationship between the two intrigues. An intimate equivalence is suggested. Also, we wonder, who is it that relies on maternal eroticism? Kristeva indicates that a mother relies on her eroticism in mothering her child, but also that the child relies on th...

I consider the broader context in which we train and practice and address a tendency toward overconfident knowing on the part of a clinician that is reflective of narcissistic dynamics. I discuss the pressure on clinicians, especially in training, to perform a role as a knowledgeable and knowing authority.

Betrayal by a trusted other sends shockwaves reverberating not only forward into ones future but backward into ones past. Ones personal history is retroactively reconfigured: What has been becomes undone. This paper looks at the loss of the analyst, formerly experienced as a good object, when a felt sense of betrayal intrudes on the analytic relati...

In this discussion I address the multidimensionality embedded within the oedipal phase of development and contend that the elaboration and working through of unrequited oedipal longing within the transference-countertransference matrix is one of the most profound gifts of an analysis. The childs confrontation with thwarted desire (generationally) f...

Certain potential precursors to heterosexual women's experience of partner infidelity are explored as these dynamics unfold within the oedipal crisis-the "betrayal" by the oedipal objects. As each child moves into the oedipal phase, he or she comes to recognize not only desire for the mother, but the mother's desire for the father. A doubling of th...

This essay addresses the painful circumstance of the analyst’s death in the midst of an analysis. Through a series of dreams after her analyst’s death, Deutsch (this issue) works hard to recover from the shock of sudden loss, and to recover her shared dialogue with her lost analyst within the context of a new analytic relationship. In contending wi...

A developmental narrative is presented that centers on bodily based narcissistic injury and sense of shame in response to unrequited oedipal longings. Through an experience of oedipal defeat in relation to both mother and father, a female sense of inadequacy and shame may be internalized and accepted as one's identity, in contrast to the male phall...

This paper considers the impact of desexualization of the maternal on the development of female sexuality. A “chance encounter” revealing a desire in the female analyst, previously unsuspected, disrupts a female patient's prior sense of homoerotic immersion with the analyst. I argue that a girl's would-be oedipal competition is encased within a pat...

I elaborate, at the level of unconscious fantasy, the oedipal recognition of “threeness” as a traumatic disruption that can have the quality of a sudden shock and that can be experienced as an assault on (dyadic) “reality.” I then take up the question of the individuality of choice, given the impact of the cultural surround. A relationship is ident...

I add a developmental perspective to the picture Roth and Freedgood have elaborated regarding the significance of surfaces. With Roth's attent ion to the analytic couple and adult intersubjective interaction, I include the mother–infant dyad—what I have written about, following Winnicott, as the “nursing couple.” I now employ Meltzer's evocative co...

Sherman underscores the tenacity of phobic avoidance of homoeroticism, especially between men. Homophobia and anxieties related to gender identity are prevalent. I agree with Sherman that the feeling of being psychically penetrated can represent a particular threat to men. Sherman's use of the image of opening Pandora's box reveals a fear of a vuln...

In this paper, I closely examine classical psychoanalytic theory on the female oedipal complex in order to shed light on same-sex object choice. Given that the mother is the first love object for the girl as well as for the boy, the girl's object relational constellation centrally involves the experience of homoeroticism as well as heteroeroticism....

In this paper, I pursue the relationship between erotic transference and creativity. Erotic transference is not solely a resistance to treatment; treatment can involve a resistance to erotic transference, the dynamics of which can have parallels in the inhibition of creativity. Although it is certainly true that erotic transferences may be defensiv...

In this paper, it is argued that males as well as females have an early experience in relation to the nursing mother of being receptive to bodily and psychic penetration. Males tend to lose access to this experience and may come to fear penetration as a threat such that a masculine sense of self is felt to be dependent on an impermeable psychic bou...

This reply offers clarification of the author's thesis. What was originally a reciprocal, pleasurable experience for each sex of mutual interpenetration with the preoedipal mother devolves into a split, gendered polarity. The specific form this takes for a boy—repudiation of identification with the mother and with maternal qualities—is seen to be d...

Questioning why it is that female genitalia and desire are viewed in psychoanalytic theory as hidden, inaccessible, and lacking, the author examines 1) female genital representation, 2) girls' erotically desirous relationships to their mothers, and 3) the nature of women's experience in sexuality. The author proposes that the marker “absent” regard...

Girls' experiences of object loss, in conjunction with female anatomical structure, may lend themselves to a particular genital anxiety regarding openness and emptiness. The relational void in giving up the mother as love object may lead to an internal self-representation of a "hole" to be filled, much as the mouth sucks the pacifier in the absence...

Selected aspects of case material in the treatment of a bisexual woman are used to illustrate the theme of penetrability versus impenetrability in the feminine and masculine psyches. I examine the dimensions not of activity and passivity, but of a fixed versus a permeable bodily and psychic boundary—the ability to penetrate as well as the ability t...

While the concept of primary femininity advances our understanding of the girl's developmental experience, a number of contradictions and problematic assumptions are at the present time contained within this concept. I propose that we use the phrase "primary sense of femaleness" to refer to the girl's earliest sense of self deriving from the mental...

Addresses the relational dynamic of merging in lesbian couples from an object relations perspective. It is contended that merging in lesbian couples does exist, that it is a function of the fact that 2 women are relating to each other, and that preoedipal gender differences in the intrapsychic process of separation–individuation account for this pa...

The tomboy phenomenon is common enough almost to be considered a developmental stage. However, while occasional references to tomboys are scattered throughout the psychoanalytic literature on female psychology, no specific treatment of the subject has existed. In this chapter, the author considers how, given their theoretical framework, various aut...

while therapists easily acknowledge the existence of erotic transference, we are often plagued by questions regarding this phenomenon / what is much less openly acknowledged is the presence of an erotic countertransference that raises particularly difficult issues in our efforts towards effective treatment / focus here is on the somewhat taboo real...