Moving from Within The Maternal

Abstract

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 choreographic engagement by the clinician in interplay with the patient. The clinician’s analytic activity is thus akin to choreography: the structuring of a dance, or of a session, expresses an inner impulse brought into narrative form. The embodied art of dance parallels the clinician’s creative vitality in contributing to the shaping of the movement of a session. Through formulation of an analytic eroticism, the terrain of what traditionally has been viewed as erotic transference and countertransference can be expanded to clinical benefit.