The Truth About Freud's Technique. Michael Guy Thompson
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 “she [the patient] has to learn from him [the analyst] to overcome the pleasure principle, to give up satisfaction which lies at hand but is socially not acceptable, in favor of a distant one, which is perhaps altogether uncertain” (170). Thus her capacity for love should lead the patient to conclude she needs to make a sacrifice, momentarily forego her pleasure and obey the “reality principle” for which she will be rewarded—later.
But why should delaying satisfaction make the patient’s love any more real than the genuineness already felt towards the analyst? Is realistic love identical to the genuine, aim-inhibited kind that epitomizes the analytic attitude, or are they different kinds of love entirely? Why can’t the analyst return the patient’s love if, after all, it’s genuine? Is the patient’s love real, but the object of her love “unrealistic”; or is the patient’s love only “imagined” in the first place? What happens at completion of analysis when, healthy and cured, the patient’s conflicts no longer jeopardize the genuineness of her feelings and the achievement of her aims? Why can’t she be rewarded with the prize for which she so earnestly struggled? Because, “After all the difficulties have been successfully overcome, she will often confess to having had an anticipatory phantasy at the time when she entered the treatment, to the effect that if she behaved well she would be rewarded at the end by the doctor’s affection” (169). Often enough, patients fail to resolve their “transference” at termination. And often enough, analysts fall in love with their patients. Occasionally, some even marry them subsequent to treatment. Of course, this is never accepted by their peers. Why not? Freud explains that
for the doctor, ethical motives unite with the technical ones to restrain him from giving the patient his love. The aim he has to keep in view is that this woman, whose capacity for love is impaired by infantile fixations, should gain free command over a function which is of such inestimable importance to her; that she should not, however, dissipate it in the treatment, but keep it ready for the time when, after her treatment, the demands of real life make themselves felt. (169)
This is only one of the many contexts in which Freud equates technical issues with ethical ones. Psychoanalysis comes into being where the two intersect. This is why the analyst
must not stage the scene of a dog-race in which the prize was to be a garland of sausages but which some humorist spoilt by throwing a single sausage on to the track. The result was, of course, that the dogs threw themselves upon it and forgot all about the race and about the garland that was luring them to victory in the far distance. I do not mean to say that it is always easy for the doctor to keep within the limits prescribed by ethics and technique. Those who are still youngish and not yet bound by strong ties may in particular find it a hard task (169; emphasis added)
It isn’t always so easy to say whose ethics Freud is emphasizing: those of the patient or the doctor? Surely both carry equal weight. In fact, the question of ethics plays a major function in Freud’s estimation of what reality is comprised of. Let’s return to his comments about the opposition between the pleasure principle and ethical behavior: “She has to learn from him [the analyst] to overcome the pleasure principle, to give up a satisfaction which lies to hand but is socially not acceptable, in favor of a more distant one, which is perhaps altogether uncertain, but which is both psychologically and socially unimpeachable” (170).
In other words, if patients ever hope to overcome their infantile yearnings and obtain real satisfaction subsequent to the termination of analysis, they have to renounce whatever remains of their love for the analyst and do the right thing: conform to “socially acceptable” conduct. In this particular context, Freud equates real (“realistic”) love with what is socially and ethically “unimpeachable.” The analysis is a microcosm of society; it helps us come to terms with—by accepting—society’s rules. Freud believed it was critical to distinguish between genuine feelings of love (dominated by the pleasure principle) on the one hand, and attaining real love (the “garland of sausages”) by submitting to what is practicable, on the other. It is perhaps ironic that Freud was so concerned with ethics and propriety when he devoted most of his life to rebelling against the beliefs of the society to which he belonged. In practice, Freud bent the rules whenever he was compelled to by individual judgment and tact. But we would be mistaken if we equated Freud’s concern for behaving realistically (and ethically) with capitulating to the arbitrary customs of one’s neighbors.
Being true to one’s feelings—and to one’s principles—requires sacrifice. It doesn’t always obtain gratification. What is true isn’t necessarily reducible to what is real. It may be true that I love somebody, but unrealistic to expect my love can be returned in the way that I want it to be. What is “socially acceptable” merely determines what is attainable. The purpose of analysis is to realize what is possible. It’s easy to love one’s analyst and certainly convenient, but although this love, so immediate and ready to hand, may be accessible, is it realistic? If the so-called infantile origins of all love, essentially narcissistic, can be conquered, sooner or later it is necessary to succumb to disappointment. The wish to be loved by one’s analyst must inevitably go unrewarded, not because the feelings that prompt these longings aren’t genuine, but because their satisfaction is simply a denial of reality, of the limitations their situation engenders. Yet, how is the patient’s emancipation—so elusive and painful—finally