Psychotherapy, Suggestion and Sexuality: Historical and Epistemological Considerations
. This paper explores the reasons for the resistance against investigation of the close affective ties which arise between patient and therapist in psychotherapy. It holds that a confusion between attachment and sexuality may be one reason why psychoanalysts do not study the role of suggestion - defined as an archaic, preverbal affective relationship -in psychotherapy. While American writers have investigated the question of sexual relations between therapist and patient, ever since the advent of animal magnetism 200 years ago provoked fears of erotic involvement, the deep affective sources of change in psychotherapy have been masked by the taboos of sexuality.