The Truth About Freud's Technique. Michael Guy Thompson

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СКАЧАТЬ who, in the poet’s words, are accessible only to the “logic of soup, with dumplings for arguments.’ With such people one has the choice between returning their love or else bringing down upon oneself the full enmity of a woman scorned” (166–67). The only possible response, according to Freud, is to resign oneself to accept their limitations, and wish them good luck.

      Obviously, a love that is so demanding and intolerant of frustration must be distinguished from one that is “less violent,” which can accept the analyst’s neutrality and is capable of assuming an analytic attitude. The “analytic attitude”—in fact, a form of love—entails compliance with the analyst’s efforts at “uncovering the patient’s infantile object-choice and the phantasies woven round if” (167). Freud conceived of the analytic attitude as one that was consistent with the kind of love he characterized as genuine. “Genuine love, we say, would make her docile and intensify her readiness to solve the problems of her case, simply because the man she was in love with expected it of her. In such a case she would gladly choose the road to completion of her treatment, in order to acquire value in the doctor’s eyes and to prepare herself for real life” (167). Indeed, is genuine love even possible within the scope of psychoanalysis? Is it possible, in other words, for a patient to experience genuine feelings of love for her analyst in the course of therapy from the vantage of her analytic attitude—or is this genuineness only possible after her analysis is over, once she is “cured”? Freud believed that evidence of genuine love actually precedes resistances that only subsequently undermine it. In other words, our capacity for love is manifested in our adherence to the analytic attitude, demonstrating a capacity for cooperation that is already inherent in each patient’s personality. That is why one’s capacity for genuine love needs to be harnessed to a willingness to collaborate with one’s analyst by acknowledging—and striving to overcome—resistances that arise.

      Not everyone, however, is capable of genuine love. Sometimes the analyst encounters a patient who is dominated by a form of resistance that only pretends to love, already poisoned by the forces of repression. According to Freud, “she is showing a stubborn and rebellious spirit, she has thrown up all interest in her treatment, and clearly feels no respect for the doctor’s well-founded convictions. She is thus bringing out a resistance under the guise of being in love with him” (167). Having drawn this elaborate distinction between transference-love (compromised by resistances), on the one hand, and genuine love (which tolerates the analysis of those resistances), on the other, Freud questions whether so-called transference-love isn’t actually real when compared to ordinary, everyday love. “Can we truly say that the state of being in love which becomes manifest in analytic treatment is not a real one?” (168). What, precisely, does Freud mean by the term real in this context? Does it refer to a love whose achievement is the culmination of a successful analysis? Or is he describing, as he seems to have been implying, a love that is sincerely felt, the kind of love that any “analyzable” person is capable of at the beginning of analysis?

      For those who always assumed transference-love, by definition, isn’t “real” because, after all, it’s the consequence of unabated infantile longings, Freud’s question must come as a shock—even bewildering. Furthermore, what place could real love enjoy in psychoanalytic treatment? Isn’t the basis of transference rooted in phantasy? In response to this entirely unexpected, and frequently overlooked, question, Freud says something that in hindsight is truly amazing: “The part played by resistance in transference-love is unquestionable and very considerable. Nevertheless the resistance did not, after all create this love; it finds it ready to hand, makes use of it and aggravates its manifestations” (168; emphasis added). To make sure we understand what Freud has in mind, he goes on: “Nor is the genuineness of the phenomenon disproved by the resistance. . . . It is true that it repeats infantile reactions. But this is the essential character of every state of being in love. There is no such state which does not reproduce infantile prototypes” (168; emphasis added).

      If there isn’t any kind of love that doesn’t derive from “infantile prototypes”—genuine, real, or transferential—then what distinguishes the real from the transferential? Throughout this paper, Freud contrasts the two in respect to their aims. Genuine love presumably aims at a “real” object, whereas transference-love aims at “the patient’s infantile object-choice and the phantasies woven around if” (167). What’as more, Freud adds, “It is precisely from this infantile determination that it receives its compulsive character, verging as it does on the pathological” (168). In other words, the relationship between love and infantilism doesn’t define the pathological, but merely “verges” on it. What, then, distinguishes “transference-love”? “Transference-love has perhaps a degree less of freedom than the love which appears in ordinary life and is called normal; it displays its dependence on the infantile pattern more clearly and is less adaptable and capable of modification” (168). Recall that it is love’s aim that characterizes the difference between the infantile and the normal, rather than the specific emotions that we customarily attribute to our experience of love. But if love is in its essence rooted in the infantile, how does it become “normal”? Does it find an object that approximates the infantile wish? Or does it abandon the infantile wish altogether? Even Freud seems at wit’s end when he exclaims, “By what other signs can the genuineness of a love be recognized? By its efficacy, its serviceability in achieving the aim of love? In this respect transference-love seems to be second to none; one has the impression that one could obtain anything from it” (168).

      Even the attributes of resourcefulness and determination prove irrelevant when attempting to determine the nature of normal love. If the degree of passion fails to persuade us of its genuine nature, then by what criteria might we hope to distinguish the genuine from the pathological?

      Let us sum up, therefore. We have no right to dispute that the state of being in love which makes its appearance in the course of analytic treatment has the character of a “genuine” love. If it seems so lacking in normality, this is sufficiently explained by the fact that being in love in ordinary life, outside analysis, is also more similar to abnormal than to normal mental phenomena. Nevertheless, transference-love is characterized by certain features which ensure it a special position. In the first place, it is provoked by the analytic situation; secondly, it is gready intensified by the resistance, which dominates the situation; and thirdly, it is lacking to a high degree in a regard for reality, is less sensible, less concerned about consequences and more blind in its valuation of the loved person than we are prepared to admit in the case of normal love. We should not forget, however, that these departures from the norm constitute precisely what is essential about being in love. (168–69; emphasis added)

      Let’s look at these three criteria more closely. To suggest that transference-love is provoked by the analytic situation is true enough, but hardly exclusive. Any situation in which one person, placed in a position of authority, brings to bear all his attentiveness and sympathetic concern about the other person’s trials and woes of living—including sexual and romantic grievances—will inevitably provoke a “transference reaction,” an affectionate appreciation. Traditionally, aunts and uncles assumed this function in families. Furthermore, perhaps most importanly, resistance to analysis—or, generally speaking, resistance to revealing oneself to the person whom one idealizes—frequently evokes the kind of hostile reactions Freud attributes to the effects of repression. Yet, if resistance to analysis—a resistance that makes use of the transference-love reaction—obtains a regression to infantile love, a love that lends the transference its compulsive character, then how can this regressive-pathological element be reconciled with the statement that love in general—the genuine included—is no different? Finally, what does Freud mean by “lacking in regard for reality” when he adds that this very quality constitutes love in its essence? Earlier Freud said that being in love (with one’s analyst) is initially genuine, but subsequently arouses resistance. On the other hand, a presumably “healthy” patient—one who is truly devoted to her analyst—would willingly succumb to the treatment and “prepare herself for real life,” the very thing that her analyst wants from her. How does one manage to achieve this degree of compliance? Freud tries to resolve these ambiguities with the conclusion that СКАЧАТЬ