SOME PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOANALYTIC TECHNIQUE

In the practice of his profession, the analyst is daily confronted with problems, for whose solution neither theoretical knowledge nor practical experience alone is adequate. It can be said that all questions of technique cluster around the one essential question, namely whether and how a clearly defined technique of analytic treatment can be deduced from the psychoanalytic theory of psychic illness. It is the question of the possibilities and limits of the application of theory to practice. However, in view of the fact that analytic practice itself does not yield the theory of psychic processes until practical tasks have been set, we have, to proceed correctly, to seek out the avenues which lead from purely empirical practice, pass through theory, and terminate in a theoretically well-grounded practice. Vast experience in the Vienna Seminar for Psychoanalytic Therapy and in monitored analytic sessions has shown that we have hardly progressed beyond the preliminary work toward the solution of the problem sketched above. It is true that we have the basic material, the so-called ABC of analytic technique, in Freud's various essays and his scattered remarks on the subject; and the very informative works on technique by Ferenczi and other writers have increased our understanding of many individual problems of technique. Generally speaking, however, there are just as many techniques as there are analysts, notwithstanding Freud's commonly shared, partially positive and partially negative suggestions, which are few compared with the welter of questions centered on practice.

These generally valid principles of technique which have become a matter of course among analysts are deduced from the general basic theoretical concepts of the neurotic process. All neuroses can be traced back to the conflict between repressed instinctual demands — among which the sexual demands of early childhood are never missing — and the ego forces which ward them off. The result of the failure to resolve this conflict is the neurotic symptom or the neurotic character trait. In terms of technique, therefore, the resolution of the conflict necessitates the "elimination of the repression"; in other words, the making conscious of the unconscious conflict. But the psychic agency known as the preconscious has erected psychic "counter-cathexes" against the breakthrough of repressed, unconscious impulses, "counter-cathexes" which act as a strict censor of one's own thoughts and desires by preventing them from becoming conscious; so it is necessary in analytic treatment to dispense with the usual ordering of one's thoughts required in everyday thinking and to allow one's train of ideas to flow freely and without critical selection. In the course of analytic work, traces of one's unconscious repressed demands and childhood experiences stand out ever more clearly amid the emerging material and, with the help of the analyst, these traces have to be translated into the language of the conscious. The so-called basic rule of psychoanalysis, which requires that the censor be abolished and one's thoughts be allowed to "associate freely," is the strictest, most indispensable measure of analytic technique. It finds a powerful support in the force of the unconscious impulses and desires pressing toward action and consciousness; however, it is opposed by another force, which is also unconscious, namely the "counter- cathexis" of the ego. This force makes it difficult and sometimes impossible for the patient to follow this basic rule. This same force also feeds the neurosis through the moralistic agencies. In the analytic treatment, these forces show up as "resistances" to the elimination of the repression. This theoretical insight dictates a further rule of practice, namely that the making conscious of the unconscious must not proceed directly but by the breaking down of the resistances. This means the patient has to realize that he is resisting, then by what means, and finally against what.

The work of making the unconscious conscious is called "interpretation"; it consists either in the unveiling of veiled expressions of the unconscious or in the reestablishment of relations which were torn asunder by the repressions. The patient's unconscious and repressed desires and fears are constantly seeking release or, more precisely, contact with real persons and situations. The most important driving force of this behavior is the patient's ungratified libido. Hence, it is to be expected that he will relate his unconscious demands and fears to the analyst and the analytic situation. This results in the "transference," i.e., the establishment of relationships to the analyst which are prompted by hate, love, or fear. But these attitudes which are expressed toward the analyst in the analytic situation are merely repetitions of older, usually childish attitudes toward people of the patient's childhood who had a special importance for him at one time. The patient has no awareness of their meaning. These transferences must be principally handled as such, i.e., they must be "resolved" by discovering how they are related to the patient's childhood. Since every neurosis, without exception, can be traced back to conflicts of childhood prior to the fourth year of life, conflicts which could not be handled at that time but become resuscitated in the transference, the analysis of the transference, i.e., that part of it which deals with the breaking down of the resistances, constitutes the most important piece of analytic work. Since, moreover, in the transference the patient either tries to supplant the explanatory work of the analysis, e.g., by gratifying the old love demands and hate impulses which have remained unsatisfied, or refuses to take cognizance of these attitudes, the transference usually develops into a resistance, i.e., it impedes the progress of the treatment. The negative transferences, i.e., the attitudes expressive of hate which are projected upon the analyst, are easily recognized as resistances from the beginning, whereas the transference of positive...