A Different Way of Saying the Same Thing
1.Overlooking a
Basic Link in Psychoanalysis:
Saying something more than once when that thing is important and needed emphasis or was not understood
well enough to leave it alone. I am repeating a previously emphasized idea that
‘psychoanalysis’ is a term that could connote a body of knowledge, and also a specific
modality of psychotherapy, but not both at the same breath. The main issue in
that distinction is the link between what is usually named the theory of
psychoanalysis and what is considered a technique of psychotherapy. Those are
two different things but linked. That link is a most elusive subject to agree on
its nature. My view of that link is that if there is a link (which I believe
there is) it has to come from a well-defined, verified, clearly articulated
theory, so the analyst would not practice psychoanalysis arbitrarily. He has to
adhere to his understanding of psychopathology and therapy, and how one
determines the other. If the analyst understand psychopathology as the outcome
of intrapsychic distortions that were formed during growing up his approach in
therapy would be concentrating his work on transference manifestations that
will give him the insight about those distortions and what to do[aF2]
the reformulate their structure. If the analyst believes that he can deal with
the interpersonal mismanagement of the psychopathology, he then will not bring
transference in the work and concentrate on correcting the patient’s views
about relationships. Each approach has clear distinctions in terms of what to
do and what not to do.
Those two different understandings of psychopathology
and its link with psychotherapy goes back to something in the Freud’s dealing
with discovering ‘psychoanalysis’. Freud began the notion of psychoanalyzing
with-maybe-some general social ideas about sexual frustration as a possible
causation of hysteria emanating from common social attitudes and some remarks
from physicians who must have encountered issues related to sexuality and
morality in their daily medical practices. Hypnosis showed him that he could make his
patients talk about those frustrations in less reservations. However, he was
able -due to his special psychological sensitivity- to hear double meanings in
what patients were consciously relating to him. Talking did not just revealed
‘the unspoken about’ but also unconscious ideas that were implicit in
what is spoken. The rest is our history. Freud was endowed with certain mental
gifts in addition of great and advanced psychological familiarity with the
neurological foundation of most of his discoveries in in psychotherapy (see the
“The Project”, and Holms extrapolations). However, Freud noticed
and intuitively knew what should be done with listening to the patients’ free
associations. In 1912 he made the clear recommendations of a practice of good
psychoanalysis; the three or the four (1910) restriction on practice.
Nonetheless, he was the biggest culprit in breaking his rules (analyzing his
daughter!!). In other words, Freud discovered the core qualities of the real
and true psychoanalyzing but did not follow them. He was not a good clinician,
but he discovered clinical work that matches his theory[aF3] .
He dropped hypnosis and started ‘psychoanalyzing’ the patients’ speech. The
link between what is said and what was ‘not said’ but relayed to Freud created
that gap between psychoanalysis and psychoanalyzing.
However, the
gap is very clear in the huge difference between his building of a body of
knowledge about psychopathology and psychodynamics on one side and the
technique of psychoanalyzing (practice) on the other. The gap between Freud’s
clinical work and his knowledge of the subject of psychoanalysis remained a
trademark of psychoanalysis as a whole and its literature, since then. The scarcity
of clear and committed literature to how we do psychoanalyzing-practicing it-
is the background of all the unresolved issues regarding the so-called theories
of psychoanalysis (the schools). It is obvious that all the well-known schools
of psychoanalysis that were competing for dominating it were related to its
practice and not to new knowledge; with the exception of Kohut’s
self-psychology. He killed it early trying to find a new way of practicing his
sudden discovery of the duality of the subject.
The link between theory and practice looks important
as a major issue in the world of psychoanalysis. But it is a link in
every individual practice of psychoanalysis. A psychoanalyst who has his
patient on the couch or on a chair in front of him has to keep in mind that he
is obligated to keep the distinction between his understanding of what the
patient relays to him and his response to it, should bridge that gap properly
and in the proper moment. The link between his theory of psychopathology and
psychotherapy will determine his response, from silence to reconstruction. This
means that the practice of psychoanalyzing should always be based on the link
between the two connotations of the term psychoanalysis. In other clearer way:
the link between what we know and what we do with what we know is where a
clinical psychoanalyst has to keep in mind all the time and readjust his work
to make that link a daily obligation.
No comments:
Post a Comment