â
â
8 . Jan Abram,The Language of Winnicott: A Dictionary of Winnicott's Use of Words (London: Karnac Books, 1966), 171. The other unthinkable anxieties are Going to Pieces, Falling Forever, and Having No Relation to the Body.
6. The Man Who Could Not Love
â
â
1 . Sullivan, like Peter, was a gifted, abrasive loner, and his only friends growing up were the animals on his parents' farmâwhich was more company than Peter had. Sullivan also coined the term “participant observer” to describe the analyst's role.
â
â
2 . Heinz Kohut, the founder of self psychology, said that “analysis is always conducted on the front lines,” by which he meant that the deepest conflicts of both participants can be aroused at any time. There is a constant, unpredictable, unconscious dialogue. Hopefully, one's own treatmentâin my case, twenty-five years total with two different analystsâalerts you to the most critical pitfalls so that you can resolve them before they overwhelm the relationship. If it really feels unmanageable, you consult informally with friends and colleagues or, on rare occasions, pay a supervisor to advise you. I was all too painfully aware of what Peter provoked in me and why, which allowed me to repair the unavoidable rifts between usâthe process through which I and many other analysts believe the most important work actually happens.
â
â
3 . Even though I was never trained in Sullivan's approach to therapy, and his system and his style did not resonate for me, I was struck by how many of his concepts illuminated Peter's predicament. I think this is partly because he resembled Peter in his personality; Sullivan was so adept at treating seriously disturbed patients that his colleagues said when he spoke with schizophrenics, they no longer sounded schizophrenic. He gave me hope, because he believed that if you made real contact with a patient, you could help him, no matter how bizarre or alien he seemed. M. Blechner, “The Gay Harry Stack Sullivan: Interactions Between His Life, Clinical Work, and Theory,”Contemporary Psychoanalysis 41, no. 4 (2005).
â
â
4 . Howard Bacal and Lucyann Carlton, “Kohut's Last Words on Analytic Cure and How We Hear Them NowâA View from Specificity Theory,”International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology 5 (2010): 132â143.
7. The Tantalizing Mentor and the Passionate Protégé
â
â
1 . I am not referring here to “mentoring” as the term is used in the corporate world. Important as these relationships areâand they often share some of the same qualities as classic mentor/protégé tiesâthey tend to be more circumscribed and not as potent or interwoven in the lives of both participants.
â
â
2 . Transference is an unconscious reexperiencing of intense emotional aspects of a childhood relationship, usually with a parent, in a current relationship. It occurs universally in psychotherapyâthe therapist's transference to the patient is called “countertransference”âand in virtually every other significant relationship throughout life. Projection is the unconscious attribution to another of one's own, usually unacceptable, emotions or personality traits. The person onto whom projections are “beamed” is called the “projective screen.” Mentors and their protégés project their own positive as well as negative characteristics onto each other and experience both positive and negative transferences toward one another.
â
â
3 . This is my speculation, based on his behavior, the comments Helen's colleagues made about Nate to her later on, and her own subliminal awareness at the time, which became clearer to her in retrospect.
â
â
4 . Kohut's resonant phrase is “the gleam in the mother's eye,” but of course this refers to either parent.
8. Traumatic Friendship
â
â
1 . Along with Heinz Kohut's self psychology, the British object relations perspective is probably the most potent influence on contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice. This approach is based on the premise that human beings do not develop in isolation and that their relations with their original “objects” (parents) and the meanings they attribute to these experiences create the self. From the very beginning, contrary to Freudian orthodoxy, the people we love influence every aspect of our lives; inner conflicts and drives are not simply projected onto the outside world. Hence, parent-child and sibling-sibling relationships are the template for all subsequent tiesâfor good and for ill. Freudian orthodoxy in its original form held that inner conflicts and drives are innate, that they unfold autonomously and are then projected onto other people whose special characteristics are essentially irrelevant.
â
â
2 . Freud,Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). Paraphrasing him, I also believe, for good or ill, that every seeking is a re-seeking.
â
â
3 . Harlow summarized his results in “The Nature of Love,” his 1958 presidential address to the American Psychological Association.
â
â
4 . Balint, who worked in Britain, was a disciple and patient of the remarkable analyst Sandor Ferenczi, a fellow Hungarian, one of the most gifted, empathic therapists of all time. Freud, whom Ferenczi revered even though he disagreed radically with him, was reputed to have said, “If you send a sick horse to Ferenczi, it will get well.”Thrills and Regressions andThe Basic Fault . He taught that therapy works by offering the patient “a new beginning,” an opportunity to repair fundamental deficits in the self caused by damaged bonds with the original caretakers.
9. Late First Marriage: The Triumph of Hope over Resignation
â
â
1 . It is particularly dismaying that this ghastly oft-quoted comparison was not in the original research on which the story was based (D. E. Bloom and N. G. Bennett, “Marriage Patterns in the United States,”Journal of Family Issues [April 1985]) but was intended as a joke inserted into the article by the woman who wrote itâa baby boomer herselfâwho claimed that she assumed nobody would take it seriously. Of course, people did, because it fit their own pessimistic assumptions. Follow-up has demolished these dismal statistics; 68 percent of women who were forty years old when the original story ran have since married. The magazine's tardy and unapologetic recantation, “Rethinking the Marriage Crunch,” was published in 2006.
â
â
2 . As a psychologist, Ted was familiar with attachment theory, the perspective articulated by British psychiatrist/psychoanalyst and child development researcher John Bowlby (1907â1990). Bowlby studied the way children (and the adults they become) relate to those they love and need based on the level of security in their earliest relationships. Ted saw that he was a textbook case of a subtype of what Bowlby called “insecure attachment.” The insecurely attached have difficulty forming deep bonds because they had no consistent source of solace available when they were anxious as children. Of course, Bowlby had experienced intense separation anxiety and its aftermath in his own childhood.Attachment (London: Hogarth, 1969),Separation (London: Hogarth, 1973),Loss (London: Hogarth, 1980) andA Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory (London: Routledge, 1988).
â
â
3 . Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung (1875â1961), Freud's most famous disciple and heir apparent who became his bitter opponent, called his own method analytical psychology. Instead of sex and aggression, he emphasized spiritual development and the study of “archetypes” manifested in myths and dreams to put people in touch with the “Self” and tap into the human legacy of wisdom he called “the Collective Unconscious.” His most accessible works areMan and His Symbols (New York: Random House, 1989), and the autobiographicalMemories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Doubleday, 1964). Jungian thought has had profound influence on the humanities; Joseph Campbell and Thomas Moore are among his popularizers. Ted was undoubtedly attracted to Jungian therapy because he was seeking a narrative of his life and an understanding of the compellingâJungians would describe them as “numinous”âdreams that had always symbolically expressed emotions he could never verbalize.
â
â
4 . A term Jung created to describe phenomena that occur by coincidence but are meaningfully connected.
10. Love Is Stronger Than the Grave
â
â
1 . Stekel, whom Freud expelled from the psychoanalytic movement in 1912, advocated “active analysis,” a briefer form of therapy in which the analyst interacted more with the patient than in classical Freudian (known as “orthodox”) technique.
â
â
2 . Kohut focused on the development and maintenance of a person's sense of self; his rival Kernberg, who remained in the more traditional psychoanalytic camp, emphasized the role of conflicts between love and aggression and how significant relationships are internalized.
11. Love Him, Hate His Politics: How a Liberal and a Conservative Stay Married
â
â
1 . S. Iyengar and S. J. Westwood, “Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization,”American Journal of Political Science (2014), doi:10.1111/ajps.12152.
â
â
2 . J. R. Alford, P. K. Hatemi, J. R. Hibbing, N. G. Martin, and L. J. Eames, “The Politics of Mate Choice,”Journal of Politics 73(2): 36279.
12. Recovering the Good from a Love Gone Bad
â
â
1 . Harry Guntrip, “My Experience of Analysis with Fairbairn and Winnicott,”International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 77 (1996): 739â754. Here, in his own words, is how Guntrip (1901â1975) recalls the revelation: “He [Winnicott] enabled me to reach extraordinarily clear understanding that my mother had almost certainly had an initial period of natural maternalism with me as her first baby, for perhaps a couple of months, before her personality problems robbed me of that âgood mother.'”
Â
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Everyone I interviewed forThe Golden Condom deserves my gratitude for the generosity and candor with which they shared their intimate experiences. I am especially indebted to my patients, who for the past forty years have taught me about love in all its guises.
Kaja Perina, the editor in chief ofPsychology Today , gave me much-needed wise counsel in the initial stages of this daunting enterprise. Dr. Douglas Mock, evolutionary biologist and emeritus professor at the University of Oklahoma, served as my first science officer, providing a witty and accessible tutorial on the neurological substrate of love. Dr. Anne Hallward, creator and host of Safe Space Radio, introduced me to remarkable people and encouraged them to tell me their stories. She has been an invaluable resource, both personally and professionally. Dr. Nina Smiley and Bernadette Miles were my emotional bulwarks throughout the process.
My heartfelt thanks to my colleague Jennifer Irvin, LCSW, for bringing to my attention revelatory contemporary psychoanalytic work on obsessive love, which greatly deepened my understanding and helped me interpret aspects of my own experience that had been opaque to me.
My husband, Richard Brookhiser, read and heard every word I wrote, often in multiple iterations, and offered his expert, clearheaded advice at every turn. The description of my youthful follies did not faze him.
The enthusiasm and skill of my agent, Michelle Tessler, is precious to me. The help provided by Peter Horoszko, assistant editor at Picador, went far beyond the call of duty.
This book could not have been written without the inspiration and the gimlet eye of Stephen Morrison, my nonpareil editor. His empathy, expertise, and dedication brought out the best in my writing. The experience of working with him has made this, my sixth author-editor marriage, worth the wait.
I am dedicatingThe Golden Condom to my coach, Terry Laughlin, founder of Total Immersion Swimming, who has taught me invaluable lessons about living, both in and out of the water.
Â
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
