Phantom Erotic Countertransference
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Erotic Countertransference
Thursday, 30 November 2006
Extra chairs were needed to cope with the interest in Prof Quadrio’s multimedia presentation, whereinclips from the film version of Lloyd-Webber’s Phantom Of The Opera were interspersed with the Prof’scommentary on erotic countertransference in the therapist with a narcissistic injury.
The role ofingénue singer Christine Daee was equated with therapy patient, while Phantom was considered akin to hertherapist, presenting initially as a helper, mentor, parental figure. His descent towards boundaryviolation via sexual consummation was noted across Lloyd-Webber’s story arc (Prof Quadrio opining that itdiffered favourably from Gaston Laroux’s original text), with special attention given to Phantom’searly-life narcissistic injury. A scene from the film was played in which a child Phantom, hessian sackover his head, is poked and jeered at by a crowd. This accompanied text from the libretto referring toPhantom’s only childhood toy being a mask.
Prof Quadrio linked this narcissistic injury to Phantom’s needto provide for Christine. As their relationship intensifies and Christine develops a paternal transferenceto Phantom, he struggles to distinguish and separate her needs of him from his needs of her. Parental andromantic attachment needs are entangled; Phantom takes Christine for his romantic partner, stepping ‘beyondthe point of no return’.
Fortunately, at the last moment, Phantom chooses not to go through with the act,fleeing and leaving an applauding toy monkey in his place. The monkey, Prof Quadrio suggested, representsthe introject of the therapist that the patient takes with them from therapy. Narcissistic therapists maystruggle to accept that the therapy belongs to the patient; that the therapist must be able to delineate,and when necessary, relinquish their role in a patient’s life.
In successful and ethical psychotherapy,the therapist exists beyond therapeutic boundaries only as a benevolent introject – the applauding toymonkey a symbol of Phantom’s lasting validation of the performer Christine.