Gentleman bountiful: Repairing the patriarch

Illustrating a patient's use of the transference as a "playground$...an intermediate region between illness & real life through which the transition from one to the other is made" (S. Freud, 1914), the case of a man in his late fifties, attempting to transcend former M role stereotypes, is presented. The client suffered from impotency unless he was with women that he considered emotionally, intellectually, or socially inferior to him. Using the therapist as a "transitional object," this patient experimented, both in therapy & his social activities, with various patterns in relationships with women, becomingly aware of his dominating benevolence & his concomitant denial of dependency needs. Several new ways for viewing both masochistic & "acting-out" behaviors are proposed. These include self-traumatization, a type of masochistic acting-out for the purpose of investigating the target problem, & self-provocation, which is the repetition of acts that assuage damaged parts of the narcissistic self. These behaviors lead to therapeutic responses tending to result in "reparative regressions." Modified HA.