Wilhelm Reich
Page 18
But how did the analyst discover the status of the unconscious negative transference? Were there any clues in the behavior of the analysand that would point (semiotically) to the emerging hatred toward the father/ mother/analyst? Reich argued that these clues could easily be found in the overlooked areas of body language and behavior. Consequently one could try to find evidence of the negative transference not just in dreams and symptoms but in such things as (sadistic) silence, failure to pay one’s bill in full or on time, an absurd desire to please the analyst, ironic distance, lateness for appointments, body rigidity in the analytic sessions, a monotone speech pattern, or an attitude of suspicion and distrust of the analyst. Each of these behaviors or bodily attitudes was a sign pointing to an underlying object—the emerging negative transference. The transference was negative because it was a symptom of the analysand’s profound fear of the analytic work as it in turn reawakened parallel childhood material, especially the Oedipal (patriarchal) complex and its necessary corollary castration anxiety. The analyst was cast in the role of the castrating father or the hated mother, but this entire process was, of course, unconscious to the analysand. Hence getting the patient to remember childhood traumas was one thing, but getting the analysand to face into the transference situation (always negative at first) was something else entirely. Reich sensed that other analysts did not do the latter kind of work because it was, quite simply, a nasty business.
The situation could be described as follows: the analysand developed a transference vis-à-vis the analyst that on the surface looked positive. When probed more fully, however, the “positive” transference showed its harsher face, namely, that it was a latent negative transference masking the initial stages of the hatred the analysand had toward either the mother or father, which got projected onto the analyst because of the power of the unconscious transference. Most analysts, because of their own narcissism, refused to look into the true depth dimension of the transference structure, preferring to live in the more controllable world of memories and interpretations:
It can be said generally that resistances cannot be taken up soon enough in the analysis, and that, apart from the resistances, the interpretation of the unconscious cannot be held back enough. Usually, the procedure is the reverse of this: the analyst is in the habit, on the one hand, of showing much too much courage in the interpretation of meaning and, on the other hand, of cringing as soon as a resistance turns up.2
Given that the process of analysis would bring up Oedipal struggles and their attendant castration anxieties before anything else, it followed that the transference, in which the analyst became mother/father, would have to embody the fear and hatred suddenly stirred up by the reactivation of the childhood material. It was certainly understandable that the analyst would prefer to stay away from this boiling morass of hatred and flee to the slightly more daylight world of meanings and interpretations.
But analysis required that both analyst and analysand had the courage to evoke and intensify the negative transference so that the affects connected with the childhood material really got activated—that is, the analysand had to truly hate the analyst and to cathect a lot of rage onto the new transference object. If the analyst had the courage to ignite this firestorm, then the analysand was well served, and eventually the distrustful attitude of the analysand could evolve into one of openness and trust toward the analyst. But without acting out the negative transference first and uprooting it from its innumerable hiding places, there would be no positive transference (which was an absolute necessity for the later stages of therapy). Reich argued that it was often necessary to confront the patient directly with the evidence of hidden negative projections, but he also cautioned that it had to be done with care and precision so that the confrontation was one that the analysand could integrate at that time, thereby avoiding the problem that even stronger resistances could be generated as a defense reaction against wounded narcissism—that is, a positive self-image that could not tolerate the idea that rage against the father/mother existed. Only a powerfully intuitive analyst could know when the timing for confrontation was right.
In his fourth chapter, entitled “On the Technique of Character Analysis,” originally given as a paper at the Tenth International Psychoanalytic Congress in Innsbruck, Austria, in September 1927, Reich presented in much more detail how the analytic process actually worked, both in terms of the economy of the psyche and in terms of the analyst/analysand relationship. The “basic rule” of psychoanalysis insisted that the patient open him- or herself fully to the analyst and therefore not hold back any unconscious material. But Reich noted that very few patients were even capable of following the basic rule and that this was because their unconscious resistances were far too strong to permit a trusting and non-defensive relationship. Patients had a double layer of resistance. The deeper layer was the resistance itself, one that held back any recognition of the covered-over Oedipal struggles and their castration anxieties. The second layer, perhaps less deep but even more complex, was the resistance to dealing with the very awareness of resistance. That is, the analysand would be incredulous when the analyst pointed to an unwillingness to recognize that resistances existed. This was itself a painful truth that had to be resisted, and both layers of resistance were, of course, unconscious, hence difficult to deal with in the opening stages of therapy.
So Reich envisioned therapy as a struggle between the analyst who saw the resistances and the analysand who was driven to not see them in order to protect a wounded ego ideal. The analytic process was also unconsciously seen as another form of castration—that is, of the threat to the penis or clitoris now enacted by the all-powerful analyst who took on the mantle of the father. For the patient, it was far easier to present “material” in a steady and predictable flow than to let even the hint of a negative transference emerge, because any anger expressed toward the analyst would immediately evoke castration and humiliation, as it had done in childhood. Thus while Reich fully honored dreams and symptoms, he used them to probe into the resistances first and then, if appropriate, would interpret them in more traditional, Freudian terms. A key issue was that of finding out what the analysand was resisting today and how that in turn tied in with any childhood material. The archaeological work of digging down through the symptom to its animating childhood experience was deprivileged so that the more powerful work of looking at contemporary resistances could be linked to the latent negative transference and therapy could really begin to open up the psyche.
Hence castration anxiety and a need to protect an ego ideal thwarted resistance analysis, compelling the analyst to be especially alert to signs of the latent negative transference. As noted, Reich thought that the best analytic strategy was to wait before directly invoking childhood or infantile material. Current material, since it was obviously deeply related to the earlier struggles, would be a better starting place:
In the beginning of the treatment, it is merely necessary for the analyst to discern the contemporary meaning of the character resistance, for which purpose the infantile material is not always required. This material we need for the dissolution of the resistance. If, at the beginning, the analyst contents himself with putting the resistance before the patient and interpreting its contemporary meaning, it is not long before the infantile material emerges and, with its help, the resistance can be eliminated.3
The obvious starting point for resistance analysis was to look into the transference that the analysand unconsciously projected onto the analyst. First it would be necessary to show the patient that the transference existed and that it was a necessary and healthy part of therapy (under proper conditions). Second it would be necessary to link the transference to any contemporary event that might have Oedipal or castration anxiety components, such as a current work relationship involving an authoritarian personality. Later other strategies would be used to release the awareness of the latent negative transference that was actually lurking within a misidentified positive tr
ansference.
A dialectic soon emerged as the patient began to sense where analysis was going. The ego became identified with the analyst, and the ego/ analyst was used as a defense against the intensified libido. In a sense, the analyst became the authoritarian father who was ultimately a mirror of the state. In microcosm one saw the entrance of the fascist mindset whenever the threat of the libido became too great. This was the moment when therapy had to push past the resistance to open up the libido in a healthy way:
The ego projects onto the analyst its defense against the striving of the id. Thus, the analyst becomes an enemy and is dangerous because, by his imposition of the irksome basic rule, he has provoked id strivings and has disturbed the neurotic balance. In its defense, the ego makes use of very old forms of defensive attitudes. In a pinch it calls upon hate impulses from the id for help in its defense, even when it is warding off a love striving.4
Were there no analytic intervention, the old balance between ego and id could proceed with all of its compromises and cunning intact. But as soon as the analyst loosened up the ego structures by undermining some of their forms of resistance, the id became freer to unleash its own built-up energetics. The economy of the psyche shifted from strong ego control to an anxious state in which the id was reawakened. And one of the first manifestations of the loss of a resistance was the increase in the amount of anxiety in the psychic system. From his phenomenological observations Reich was able to develop a law that stated that there was always an increase in anxiety whenever there was a lack of genital potency combined with an initial loosening of the character armor (somatic resistance) in the self. Needless to say, most individuals would initially prefer to dampen anxiety than to proceed with the intense demands of the analytic work. Anxiety could be lowered by simply putting the ego back in its place as controller of the id.
Every successful analysis required that the analysand experience powerful emotions that turned toward a hatred of the analyst. The unfolding of the latent negative transference into one that was no longer latent but manifest was a clue that the therapeutic relationship was moving in the right direction:
Finally, the patient rebels against the threat of the analysis, rebels against the threat to his protective psychic armor, of being put at the mercy of his drives, particularly his aggressive drives. By rebelling against this “nonsense,” however, his aggressiveness is aroused and it is not long before the first emotional outbreak ensues (i.e., a negative transference) in the form of a paroxysm of hate. If the analyst succeeds in getting this far, the contest has been won. When the aggressive impulses have been brought into the open, the emotional block has been penetrated and the patient is capable of analysis. From this point on, the analysis runs its usual course. The difficulty consists in drawing out the aggressiveness.5
In a sense, what was meant by analysis proper could begin only after the “paroxysm of hate” had loosened the emotional block that was embedded in the character armor. This would increase the amount of anxiety in the system in the short run but would lead to its replacement by sexual satisfaction in the long run. Genital potency could not emerge without the initial penetration of the emotional armor of the individual, an armor that formed what the world saw as that individual’s character structure. And it wasn’t until the negative emotional outburst of the patient occurred that she or he could even know that there was a character armor blocking the natural flow of biological energy in the psyche/soma.
Imagine the terror in the psyche of the analysand when she or he was suddenly confronted with insights that shattered the neurotic compromise between the ego ideal and repressed sexuality. For Jung this would be equivalent to the discovery of the shadow, namely, that part of the unconscious that manifested the feared and denied part of the persona (the positive ego and its external social ideal). Patients were more likely to flee therapy during this time, when they experienced the sudden demoralizing effects of confronting the shadow, than at any other time. Here Reich’s insights ran on tracks parallel to Jung’s as he, like Jung, saw the “shadow” as being composed of deeply abjected ego-ideal-shattering drives and conflicts that generated intense resistances, which in turn compelled the less strong analysand to leave therapy. To prevent the analysand from acting on the flight response, the analyst had to know how much true ego strength was available in each case and also properly gauge the recovery powers of the repressed libido. This analytic process required the utmost from the analyst, as a more passive or listening approach would fail to enter into the resistances that the analyst should have helped excite in the first place. For Reich the method of free association no longer held any prospects for a cure on the character level. Only a more direct and probing method would work—a method that looked for the negative transference first and then heated its intensity until it became an incandescent presence in consciousness.
As always, the transference was fundamental to Reich (as it was for Freud and Otto Rank), especially insofar as it was the road by which the patient could travel back to infantile conflicts. But in the initial stage of therapy all forms of transference were both negative (even if masked by a so-called positive transference) and the locus of resistance. This occurred because it placed the analyst in the role of the castrating father or the Oedipal mother (for a male analysand) or of the castrating mother and Oedipal father (for a female analysand). In either event, the analyst was the castrator and the object of sexual desire, neither prospect being congenial to the analysand’s ego ideal, therefore causing the patient’s psyche to resist any awareness of its current and infantile situations. Reich insisted that only an inexperienced analyst would believe that a positive transference was possible at the beginning of therapy:
It is correct that all neuroses result from a neurotic character and, moreover, that the neurotic character is characterized precisely by its narcissistic armoring, then the question arises whether our patients are at all capable of a genuine positive transference, in the beginning. By “genuine,” we mean a strong, nonambivalent, and erotic object striving, capable of providing a basis for an intense relationship to the analyst and of weathering the storms entailed by the analysis. Reviewing our cases, we have to answer this question in the negative: there is no genuine positive transference at the beginning of the analysis, nor can there be, because of the sexual repression, the fragmentation of the object-libidinal strivings, and the restrictions of the character.6
Object-libido strivings were fragmented because they were still tied to pregenital fixations that could not weave themselves into a whole genital cathexis. Insofar as the negative transference could evolve into a positive one, it would follow that the object-libido strivings could begin to cathect onto one object, namely, the analyst. Put simply, when the patient fell in love with the analyst and knew that she or he was doing so, the libido could be worked with in a conscious way. The transition was from castration anxiety and Oedipal struggle toward a state of healthy and guilt-free object cathexis. The role of the analyst was to be the midway point from castration anxiety to a healthy extra-analytic relationship. Only through a positive transference could the analysand evolve into a genitally healthy person. By loving the analyst, the analysand could work past fear of the father/mother castration and overcome incest desires.
Pregenital strivings (oral, anal, phallic/clitoral) must become genital in the full sense. Seeing that they did was a key part of the analyst’s job. If the analyst were loved only orally or in an anal/sadistic way, then the analysand’s psyche would remain in a state of sexual stasis. Analytic skill would gather up the pregenital fixations into the genital and allow the analysand to see the analyst in terms of “sexual realism”:
From the economic point of view, the task of handling the transference might best be formulated as follows: the analyst must strive to bring about a concentration of all object libido in a purely genital transference. To achieve this, the sadistic and narcissistic energies, which are bound in the character armor, must be freed, and th
e pregenital fixations must be loosened. When the transference is correctly handled, the libido, built up as a result of the liberation of those strivings from the structure of the character, becomes concentrated in the pregenital positions. This concentration of libido induces a temporary positive transference of a pregenital, i.e., more infantile, nature. This transference, in turn, is conducive to the breakthrough of pregenital fantasies and incest drives and thus helps to unbind the pregenital fixations. However, all the libido which analysis helps to free from its pregenital fixations becomes concentrated in the genital stage and intensifies the genital Oedipal situation, as in the case of hysteria; or reawakens it, as in the case of compulsion neurosis (depression, etc.).7
Again the analytic dialectic is manifest, this time in terms of the transformation of the pregenital into the genital, but only through a temporary regression that, in true Hegelian style, must initially negate the very goal that is sought. When therapy evokes the pregenital through a positive transference, there is a step backward into fantasies and incest longings that divert the libido away from its goal of full genitality. But this regression in the dialectic is actually a necessary stage in that it brings the rejected pregenital material into consciousness, thereby allowing it to transcend itself and take the next step of gathering its fragments into a unified genital drive that is directed toward the analyst. This last turn in the dialectic requires, of course, an unleashing of genuine affect and a loosening of the character armor.