The Love Triangle Of Psychoanalytic Theory: Resistance, Repression, Transference (part 3)

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The love triangle of psychoanalytic theory: resistance, repression, transference

Resistance to the senses

Later, Freud refused to put his hand on his forehead, as a rudiment of hypnosis, and from assurances, convictions and perseverance. The fundamental rule of psychoanalysis - "just say what comes to mind" - was sufficient to obtain the necessary material through which it is possible to carry out effective treatment, which now has become a painstaking work to restore the lost connections.

But even then Freud began to understand that his insistence was unnecessary:

"In this way, without the use of hypnosis, I was able to learn from the patient everything that was necessary to establish a connection between the forgotten pathogenic scenes and the symptoms remaining from them. It was a tedious procedure that required a lot of effort, which was not suitable for the final method."

However, I confirmed that the forgotten memories have not disappeared. The patient still possessed these memories, and they were ready to enter into an associative connection with what he knows, but some force prevented them from becoming conscious and forced them to remain unconscious. The existence of such a force could be accepted with absolute certainty, since the corresponding tension was felt when trying, in contrast to it, to bring unconscious memories into the patient's consciousness. One felt the strength that sustained the painful state, namely the resistance of the patient.

"On this idea resistance I built my understanding of mental processes in hysteria. I also want to note that with the study of hysteria, the emergence of psychoanalysis began, and later the universality of this rule was proved. To recover, it turned out to be necessary to destroy this resistance. According to the mechanism of recovery, it was possible to form an idea of the process of the disease. The very forces, like resistance, which now prevent the forgotten from becoming conscious, at one time contributed to this forgetting and forced out the corresponding pathogenic experiences from consciousness. I called this process I assumed repression and considered it as evidence due to the undeniable existence of resistance. "S. Freud

crowding out

Further Freud finds out what are the forces and what are the conditions displacement, that repression in which we now see the pathogenic mechanism of hysteria? A comparative study of pathogenic situations during cathartic treatment showed that with all these experiences, the matter was in the emergence of a desire, which consisted in a sharp contradiction with other desires of the individual, a desire that was incompatible with the ethical views of the individual. There was a short conflict, and the end of this inner struggle was that the idea that arose in consciousness as the bearer of this incompatible desire was repressed and, along with the memories related to it, was removed from consciousness and forgotten. The incompatibility of the corresponding idea with the patient's "I" was the motive for repression; the ethical and other demands of the individual were repressive forces. Acceptance of an incompatible desire or, equivalently, the continuation of the conflict would cause considerable displeasure; this displeasure was eliminated displacement, which is thus one of protective devices of the mental personality." [34]

We can say: hysterical patients suffer from memories. Their symptoms are remnants and symbols of memories of known (traumatic) experiences, and the very process of forgetting significant and emotionally intense life events without living these emotions has been called repression. [22]

But the repression most familiar to us is forgetting, that is, consciousness loses not affect, but mental content, which was understood, but could not take the position of conscious or accessible to consciousness memories. [42]

The theory of repression is the cornerstone on which the entire edifice of psychoanalysis rests.”Repression as a clinical fact makes itself felt in the very first cases of treatment of hysteria. all his liveliness: “It was about things that the patient would like to forget, inadvertently displacing them outside his consciousness.” Repression is especially evident in hysteria, but plays an important role in other mental disorders, as well as in a normal psyche. consider that this is a universal mental process underlying the formation of the unconscious as a separate area of the psyche.

As we can see, the concept of repression was initially correlated with the concept of the unconscious (the very concept of the repressed for a long time - until the discovery of unconscious defenses of the I - was for Freud a synonym for the unconscious).

Symptom as a failed preemptive attempt. The thought that arises in the patient is itself formed in the same way as the symptom: it is a new, artificial, ephemeral substitute for the repressed. The stronger the distortion under the influence of resistance, the less the similarity between the emerging thought - the substitute for the repressed and the repressed itself. Nevertheless, this thought must have at least some resemblance to the one sought, since it has the same origin as the symptom. (S. Freud)

To put it bluntly, research on hysterics and other neurotics leads us to believe that they have failed to repress an idea with which an incompatible desire is associated. True, they removed it from consciousness and memory, and thus, it would seem, saved themselves from a large amount of displeasure, but in the unconscious the repressed desire continues to exist and waits only for the first opportunity to become active and send a substitute from oneself into the consciousness of a distorted, unrecognizable substitute. To this substitute notion are soon added those unpleasant feelings from which one could consider oneself to be delivered through repression. This representation - symptom - replacing the repressed thought - is spared further attacks from the defending self, and instead of a short-term conflict comes endless suffering. [34]

The symptom (hysterical) is formed at the site of the failed displacement.

Using the cathartic method, conclusions are formed about the connection of symptoms with pathogenic experiences or mental trauma. In a symptom, along with signs of distortion, there is a remnant of any resemblance to the original, repressed idea, a remnant that allows such a substitution to take place. Later, the symptom is also considered a dream.

The merit of Breuer and Freud was that they realized that hysteria is not only not pretense (as many psychiatrists in the 19th century thought), that a hysterical symptom is like a mute emblem, the meaning of which is to draw the attention of others to the fact that torments the neurotic. This concept was developed in the book of one of the representatives of the antipsychiatric trend in psychology of the 1960s - 1970s Thomas Szasz "The Myth of Mental Illness", where he wrote that a hysterical symptom is a kind of message, a message in iconic language, sent from a neurotic to a loved one or a psychotherapist, a message that contains a signal for help. [25]

The "sexuality" of symptoms

“I know that this statement of mine is not very much trusted, however: psychoanalytic studies reduce with really amazing accuracy the symptoms of suffering of patients to impressions from the area of their love life; attributed the greatest importance among the factors leading to the disease,and this is true for both sexes. S. Freud

Freud thought it was traumatic, especially sexually. In the case of an actual neurosis, the sexual bodily attraction cannot find an adequate outlet in the mental area, thus, it turns into anxiety or neurasthenia. Psychoneurosis, on the other hand, is nothing more than the development of this anxiety-provoking nucleus.

Initially in Freudian theory, this is the core of such a traumatic scene that the patient cannot or does not want to remember anything about it - the words are missing. This core is sexy and has to do with seduction; the father appears to be a villain, which explains the traumatic nature of this core; it deals with the issue of sexual identity and sexual relations, but, in a strange way, with an emphasis on pregenitality; and finally, it is old, very old. It would seem that sexuality is before the onset of sexuality, so Freud will speak of "pre-sexual sexual fright." A little later, of course, he will pay tribute to infantile sexuality and infantile desires.

Let's look at Dora: she is constantly seeking knowledge about the sexual, she consults with Madame K., she swallows Mantegazza's books on love (these are Masters and Johnson at the time), she secretly consults a medical encyclopedia. Even today, if you want to write a scientific bestseller, you have to write something in this area, and you are guaranteed success. Second, each hysterical subject produces fantasies, which are a strange combination of knowledge secretly acquired by them and an allegedly traumatic scene.

The discovery of infantile sexuality

If most people, doctors or non-doctors, do not want to know anything about a child's sex life, then this is perfectly understandable. They themselves have forgotten, under the influence of cultural upbringing, their own infantile activity and now do not want to remember the repressed. You will come to a different belief if you start by analyzing, revising, and interpreting your own childhood memories.

The most outstanding characteristic of infantile sexuality concerns not so much the problem of infantile-sexual games, but rather the most important one - it is their (infantile subjects) thirst for knowledge. Just like the hysterical patient, the child wants to know the answer to three related questions:

The first question concerns the difference between boys and girls: what makes boys boys and girls girls?

The second question concerns the topic of the appearance of children: where did my younger brother or sister come from, how did I come from?

A final question about father and mother: what is the relationship between the two, why did they choose each other, and especially what are they doing together in the bedroom?

These are the three themes of childhood sexual exploration, as Freud described them in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, calling them "infantile sexual exploration" and "infantile sexual theories." The attention-grabbing topic in the first question concerns the lack of a penis, especially in the mother.

The explanatory theory speaks of castration. The obstacle in the second question - the appearance of children - concerns the role of the father in this. Theory speaks of seduction. The final stumbling block concerns sexual relations as such, and the theory only provides pregenital answers, usually in a violent context.

Further, Lacan will say that the inability to find answers to questions about castration, the first father and the first scene is the core of neurosis. These responses will be developed and refined in the subject's personal fantasies. This means that we can clarify the further development of the chain of signifiers in our first scheme: their further development is nothing more than primary fantasies, from which possible neurotic symptoms can develop, against the background of latent anxiety. This anxiety can always be traced back to the initial situation, which is caused by the development of defenses in the Imaginary. For example, Elizabeth von R., one of the patients described in Investigations of Hysteria, became ill at the thought of having an affair with her deceased sister's husband. In the case of Dora, Freud notes that the hysterical subject is unable to endure a normal arousal sexual situation; Then every encounter with sexuality is always unsuccessful: too early, too late, in the wrong place. The hysterical position is essentially a rejection of the general response and the possibility of producing a personal one.

Every time the hysterical subject is faced with a choice regarding one of these three central themes, it is not so much a choice as rather a refusal to choose, he tries to avoid this and wants to keep both alternatives, therefore the central mechanism in the formation of a hysterical symptom is condensation, thickening both alternatives. In an article on the connection between symptoms and hysterical fantasies, Freud notes that behind each symptom, not one, but two fantasies - masculine and feminine. The overall result of this non-choice is, of course, that which ultimately leads nowhere. You cannot have a cake and eat it. Freud gives a very creative illustration when he describes a well-known hysterical seizure in which the patient plays both roles in the underlying sexual fantasy: on the one hand, the patient pressed her outfit against her body with one hand, like a woman, while with the other hand she tried to rip it off. him - as a man. A less obvious, but no less common example concerns a woman who wants to be as emancipated as possible and identifies with a man, but whose sex life is full of masochistic fantasies, and in general is frigid.

Each subject must make certain choices in life. He may find an easy way out with ready-made answers in his society, or his choices may be more personal, depending on his or her level of maturity. The hysterical subject refuses ready-made answers, but is not ready to make a personal choice, the answer must be made by the Master, who will never be the master in full. [4]

The symptom is then an attempt to make a choice, that is, to accept castration, which remains a key dilemma in the analysis.

Transfer Phenomenon

"I have not yet told you the most important fact, obtained by experience, which confirms our position about sexuality as the driving force of neurosis. Whenever we investigate a neurotic psychoanalytically, the latter has an unpleasant phenomenon of transference, that is, the patient transfers a whole mass to the doctor. tender and very often mixed with hostility aspirations. This is not caused by any real relationship and should be attributed on the basis of all the details of the appearance to long-standing, become unconscious fantasy-desires. " Z. Freud

"Transference occurs in all human relationships, just as in the patient's relationship to the doctor, spontaneously; it is everywhere the true bearer of therapeutic influence, and it acts the more strongly the less we know about its presence. Psychoanalysis, therefore, does not create transference, but only opens it up to consciousness and takes possession of it in order to direct mental processes to the desired goal. " Z. Freud

As for the role of trauma, they can be assessed, as Freud noted back in 1895, exclusively retrospectively:

“The necessary analytical work should not stop at the experience of the time of illness if it is to lead to a thorough investigation and recovery. It must go to the time of sexual development and then early childhood, in order there to determine the impressions and accidents that determined future illness. Only childhood experiences provide an explanation. sensitivity to future trauma, and only by opening and bringing to consciousness these traces of memories, usually almost always forgotten, do we acquire the power to eliminate symptoms. Here we come to the same result as in the study of dreams, namely, that the remaining, albeit repressed childhood desires give their strength to the formation of symptoms. Without these desires, the reaction to later traumas would have proceeded normally. And these powerful childhood desires we can, in a general sense, call sexual. Z. Freud

The thing is that events for us are significant exclusively from a subjective point of view, which caused strong feelings, i.e. it has to do with our attitude, and therefore our feelings. Then we are tormented not by memories, but by the acute, sometimes intolerable feelings associated with them, which cannot be forgotten - you can only survive (get rid of). And then we will cease to be tormented by what seemed impossible to forget ever. [22].

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