This work is about psychotherapy with a terminally ill patient but it is intended for a far broader readership than this indicates. In its moving narrative, Joy Schaverien raises questions regarding the meaning of love and death in psychotherapy. The multiple layers of an erotic transference reveal the developmental path from infancy to adult, sexual intimacy, engaging the analyst, as well as patient, in a process of psychological transformation. A series of vivid dreams, rich in symbolic imagery, traces the emotional situation as awareness of death approaches. Imaginative, personal, theoretical and practical, it shows, through detailed attention to the countertransference, how adherence to the analytic frame facilitates individuation.
