Perfume: A meditation on the countertransferential drama with babies who smell bad

摘要

A Mother's role is to create intimacy and smell is an elemental aspect of intimacy in life and in therapy. Mother and child, therapist and client, metaphorically and literally breathe each other in. Regardless of its effect on us, smell is part of the "mutual perfume" or sensory road map of presence with another human being. Weaving [Suskind, P. (1986/2001). Perfume: The story of a murderer. (J. E. Woods, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books/Random House Inc.] the novel Perfume: The Story of A Murderer through case examples from her drama therapy practice, the author explores her subjective countertransference and undertakes an aesthetic examination of abandonment and attunement in the therapy as experienced through and evoked by smell. This essay examines Role as a form of therapeutic agency (with particular focus upon the therapist in the role of surrogate mother) that can lead the therapist and client from presence with each other out onto the stage of potential therapeutic change.