During the previous week Ernest had spent time in the library reviewing the literature on eroticized transference. He had been struck by some of Freud’s cautionary words regarding the treatment of “women of an elemental passionateness.” Freud referred to these patients as “children of nature” who refused to accept the spiritual instead of the physical and were amenable only to the “logic of gruel and the argument of dumplings.” Pessimistic about treating such patients, Freud claimed that the therapist had only two, unacceptable choices: returning the patient’s love or being the target of the
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