A sexual violation in an analytic treatment and its personal and theoretical aftermath

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MURIEL DIMEN, Ph.D.

(Dimen, 2003; Mitchell, 1974). But, as it turned out, psychoanalysis reca-

pitulated the hierarchy from whose domination I was seeking release 

and, paradoxically, both enlivenment and authorization. Feminism, less 

attuned to (though preservative of) interior life, created a temporary uto-

pia in which women were authorizing themselves outside patriarchal 

limits. Dr. O helped me to a new self (albeit in certain ways a false one 

that required repair by later treatment), but I could not have cultured that 

self without the nurture of feminism.

That life transformation, like this writing, constituted my personal com-

promise formation. If I could not save the actual relationship, I could fix 

it by proxy; if Dr. O wasn’t going to help me, I was going to help myself. 

It was as though I transferred my attachment from him to a set of intel-

lectual and clinical practices that meant a great deal to me, to him, to the 

damaged us. Coming closer to him while keeping my distance, I was go-

ing to make good on his promise. That this operation bootstrap entailed 

calling in the cops—the Third that Dr. O seems not to or could not have 

known—was not in my mind at the time. Now it looks like an uncon-

scious wish: I am asking the psychoanalytic community to bear witness 

to one of its recurrent mistakes.

I have also beaten Dr. O at his own game. Theory is only for the ge-

niuses? Maybe not. Or maybe it remains to be seen who the genius is. I 

do hope that this critique of my incestuous analysis with him advances a 

bit our grasp of a crucial intersubjective process in a way that sheds some 

clinical light. (Unlike him, I am not so willing to split theory and tech-

nique.) I am no longer ashamed, as I once was, of having taken inspira-

tion from the man who hurt me. If I was identifying with the aggressor, 

perhaps I was also competing, aiming to do what he did but to do it well, 

better, right. Women too inhabit the Symbolic.

It is true as well that, by historical accident if nothing else, I am now 

on top. In the era when Dr. O and I worked together, psychoanalysis was 

starting to take a beating for its interpersonal and ethical transgressions, 

an attack that has only intensified. Being around when therapy was be-

ing deidealized and democratized was not the only way I had history on 

my side. I entered the field at a time when women’s increasing promi-

nence began contributing to the profession’s long-deferred, but intensify-

ing recognition of its sexism and homophobia. That psychoanalysis could 

not continue to demean or erase the feminist critique surely helped me 

to achieve my own voice, standing, and recognition for integrity and 

moral authority.

So, having the upper hand by virtue of the reversal of fortune between 

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SEXUAL VIOLATION  IN AN ANALYTIC TREATMENT 

65

analyst and patient, as well as by my own, post-Dr. O achievements, I no 

longer had, when I began drafting this article six years ago, to look him 

in the eye. Perhaps, instead, I looked down on him, secure in the knowl-

edge that I could afford to dismiss him and thereby not have to confront 

him. For these reasons, this writing may be retaliatory and unfair to Dr. 

O, who, now dead, cannot reply. I cannot help that. If I cannot quite 

forgive him the damage he did, and even if no speech on this topic is 

pure (Harris, 2010), including my own, still I hope my reflections on the 

strange mutuality of our never-analyzed enactment, on my gains as well 

as my losses, will serve as sufficient mourning.

I had two terminations with Dr. O. The first occurred after a decade of 

treatment; I do not recall its impetus. But, a year later, I returned for two 

more years, attending sessions only weekly, sitting up. I took notes after 

each session because, as I saw it, I was trying to understand something 

that had eluded me. Those notes seem to have vanished in the course of 

a domestic renovation or two. But I don’t need them anymore.

Conclusion: The Problem that Won’t Go Away

When I began this article, Dr. O was, as far as I knew, alive. Were he still 

alive when I finished it, two things are certain: news of it would have 

reached him, and personal honor would have demanded I confront him. 

As it turns out, his death has spared but also deprived me. Without a 

doubt, had I arranged to see him, I would have managed my terror, an-

ger, and shame by bringing a colleague for support during what I expect 

would have been an unpleasant 50 minutes. I cannot imagine Dr. O wel-

coming my accusation, nor do I see him taking a long-awaited opportu-

nity to reflect with me. You never know, of course. He might have 

surprised me: as I write, I imagine his apology and my eyes well up. I 

feel obliged to say that, either way, the confrontation would likely have 

been salutary. Still, whenever I think of having missed it, I usually feel 

more relief than regret.

You may be wondering why I did not go to him before. Here is the 

paradox: had I not written this article, I could not have found “the words 

to say it” (Cardinale, 1975). Not only, now that I think about it, did my 

slow comprehension require his absence to find life. It required someone 

else’s presence. Only while writing for an audience I expected would 

listen, could I recover the meanings in what otherwise was rote report-

ing. It took, one might say, a village, a relational process: I fashioned a 

repair for myself by noticing, at a moment when I could imagine some-

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