Clinical Conflict: A Lesson in Castration

The first time I walked into her office, I was out of breath. I had gone six whole months without really good supervision, and my early-career clinical load was starting to break me. The accumulation of all sorts of countertransferences, a vague sense that I was listening hard but for the wrong things, and the strain of my third real year in analysis had all started to set in. I had first seen her…