experiences and we are about to obtain two. Both are very remarkable and
were at the time of their discovery, very surprising. You are, of
course, prepared for both from our discussions of the past semester.
In the first place: When we undertake to cure a patient, to free him
from the symptoms of his malady, he confronts us with a vigorous,
tenacious resistance that lasts during the whole time of the treatment.
That is so peculiar a fact that we cannot expect much credence for it.
The best thing is not to mention this fact to the patient's relatives,
for they never think of it otherwise than as a subterfuge on our part in
order to excuse the length or the failure of our treatment. The patient,
moreover, produces all the phenomena of this resistance without even
recognizing it as such; it is always a great advance to have brought him
to the point of understanding this conception and reckoning with it.
Just consider, this patient suffers from his symptoms and causes those
about him to suffer with him. He is willing, moreover, to take upon
himself so many sacrifices of time, money, effort and self-denial in
order to be freed. And yet he struggles, in the very interests of his
malady, against one who would help him. How improbable this assertion
must sound! And yet it is so, and if we are reproached with its
improbability, we need only answer that this fact is not without its
analogies. Whoever goes to a dentist with an unbearable toothache may
very well find himself thrusting away the dentist's arm when the man
makes for his sick tooth with a pair of pincers.
The resistance which the patient shows is highly varied, exceedingly
subtle, often difficult to recognize, Protean-like in its manifold
changes of form. It means that the doctor must become suspicious and be
constantly on his guard against the patient. In psychoanalytic therapy
we make use, as you know, of that technique which is already familiar to
you from the interpretation of dreams. We tell the patient that without
further reflection he should put himself into a condition of calm
self-observation and that he must then communicate whatever results this
introspection gives him--feelings, thoughts, reminiscences, in the order
in which they appear to his mind. At the same time, we warn him
expressly against yielding to any motive which would induce him to
choose or exclude any of his thoughts as they arise, in whatever way the
motive may be couched and however it may excuse him from telling us the
thought: "that is too unpleasant," or "too indiscreet" for him to tell;
or "it is too unimportant," or "it does not belong here," "it is
nonsensical." We impress upon him the fact that he must skim only across
the surface of his consciousness and must drop the last vestige of a
critical attitude toward that which he finds. We finally inform him that
the result of the treatment and above all its length is dependent on the
conscientiousness with which he follows this basic rule of the analytic
technique. We know, in fact, from the technique of interpreting dreams,
that of all the random notions which may occur, those against which such
doubts are raised are invariably the ones to yield the material which
leads to the uncovering of the unconscious.
The first reaction we call out by laying down this basic technical rule
is that the patient directs his entire resistance against it. The
patient tries in every way to escape its requirements. First he will
declare that he cannot think of anything, then, that so much comes to
his mind that it is impossible to seize on anything definite. Then we
discover with no slight displeasure that he has yielded to this or that
critical objection, for he betrays himself by the long pauses which he
allows to occur in his speaking. He then confesses that he really cannot
bring himself to this, that he is ashamed to; he prefers to let this
motive get the upper hand over his promise. He may say that he did think
of something but that it concerns someone else and is for that reason
exempt. Or he says that what he just thought of is really too trivial,
too stupid and too foolish. I surely could not have meant that he should
take such thoughts into account. Thus it goes on, with untold
variations, in the face of which we continually reiterate that "telling
everything" really means telling everything.
One can scarcely find a patient who does not make the attempt to reserve
some province for himself against the intrusion of the analysis. One
patient, whom I must reckon among the most highly intelligent, thus
concealed an intimate love relation for weeks; and when he was asked to
explain this infringement of our inviolable rule, he defended his action
with the argument that he considered this one thing was his private
affair. Naturally, analytic treatment cannot countenance such right of
sanctuary. One might as well try in a city like Vienna to allow an
exception to be made of great public squares like the Hohe Markt or the
Stephans Platz and say that no one should be arrested in those
places--and then attempt to round up some particular wrong-doer. He will
be found nowhere but in those sanctuaries. I once brought myself around
to permit such an exception in the case of a man on whose capacity for
work a great deal depended, and who was bound by his oath of service,
which forbade him to tell anyone of certain things. To be sure, he was
satisfied with the results--but not I; I resolved never to repeat such
an attempt under these conditions.
Compulsion neurotics are exceedingly adept at making this technical rule
almost useless by bringing to bear all their over-conscientiousness and
their doubts upon it. Patients suffering from anxiety-hysteria sometimes
succeed in reducing it to absurdity by producing only notions so remote
from the thing sought for that analysis is quite unprofitable. But it is
not my intention to go into the way in which these technical
difficulties may be met. It is enough to know that finally, by means of
resolution and perseverance, we do succeed in wresting a certain amount
of obedience from the patient toward this basic rule of the technique;
the resistance then makes itself felt in other ways. It appears in the
form of an intellectual resistance, battles by means of arguments, and
makes use of all difficulties and improbabilities which a normal yet
uninstructed thinking is bound to find in the theory of analysis. Then
we hear from one voice alone the same criticisms and objections which
thunder about us in mighty chorus in the scientific literature.
Therefore the critics who shout to us from outside cannot tell us
anything new. It is a veritable tempest in a teapot. Still the patient
can be argued with, he is anxious to persuade us to instruct him, to
teach him, to lead him to the literature, so that he may continue
working things out for himself. He is very ready to become an adherent
of psychoanalysis on condition that analysis spare him personally. But
we recognize this curiosity as a resistance, as a diversion from our
special objects, and we meet it accordingly. In those patients who
suffer from compulsion neuroses, we must expect the resistance to
display special tactics. They frequently allow the analysis to take its
way, so that it may succeed in throwing more and more light on the
problems of the case, but we finally begin to wonder how it is that this
clearing up brings with it no practical progress, no diminution of the
symptom. Then we may discover that the resistance has entrenched itself
in the doubts of the compulsion neurosis itself and in this position is
able successfully to resist our efforts. The patient has said something
like this to himself: "This is all very nice and interesting. And I
would be glad to continue it. It would affect my malady considerably if
it were true. But I don't believe that it is true and as long as I don't
believe it, it has nothing to do with my sickness." And so it may go on
for a long time until one finally has shaken this position itself; it is
then that the decisive battle takes place.
The intellectual resistances are not the worst, one can always get ahead
of them. But the patient can also put up resistances, within the limits
of the analysis, whose conquest belongs to the most difficult tasks of
our technique. Instead of recalling, he actually goes again through the
attitudes and emotions of his previous life which, by means of the
so-called "transference," can be utilized as resistances to the
physician and the treatment. If the patient is a man, he takes this
material as a rule from his relations to his father, in whose place he
now puts the physician, and in so doing constructs a resistance out of
his struggle for independence of person and opinion; out of his ambition
to equal or to excel his father; out of his unwillingness to assume the
burden of gratitude a second time in his life. For long times at a
stretch one receives the impression that the patient desires to put the
physician in the wrong and to let him feel his helplessness by
triumphing over him, and that this desire has completely replaced his
better intention of making an end to his sickness. Women are adepts at
exploiting, for the purposes of the resistance, a tender, erotically
tinged transference to the physician. When this leaning attains a
certain intensity, all interest for the actual situation of the
treatment is lost, together with every sense of the responsibility which
was assumed by undertaking it. The never-failing jealousy as well as the
embitterment over the inevitable repudiation, however gently effected,
all must serve to spoil the personal understanding between patient and
physician and thus to throw out one of the most powerful propelling
forces of the analysis.
Resistances of this sort must not be narrow-mindedly condemned. They
contain so much of the most important material of the patient's past and
reproduce it in such a convincing manner, that they become of the
greatest aid to the analysis, if a skillful technique is able to turn
them in the right direction. It is only remarkable that this material is
at first always in the service of the resistance, for which it serves as
a barrier against the treatment. One can also say that here are traits
of character, adjustments of the ego which were mobilized in order to
defeat the attempted change. We are thus able to learn how these traits
arose under the conditions of the neurosis, as a reaction to its
demands, and to see features more clearly in this character which could
otherwise not have shown up so clearly or at least not to this extent,
and which one may therefore designate as latent. You must also not get
the impression that we see an unforeseen endangering of the analytic
influence in the appearance of these resistances. On the contrary, we
know that these resistances must come to light; we are dissatisfied only
when we do not provoke them in their full strength and so make them
plain to the patient Indeed, we at last understand that overcoming these
resistances is the essential achievement of analysis and is that portion
of the work which alone assures us that we have accomplished something
with the patient.
You must also take into account the fact that any accidental occurrences
which arise during the treatment will be made use of by the patient as a
disturbance--every diverting incident, every statement about analysis
from an inimical authority in his circle, any chance illness or any
organic affection which complicates the neurosis; indeed, he even uses
every improvement of his condition as a motive for abating his efforts.
You will then have gained an approximate, though still an incomplete
picture of the forms and devices of the resistance which must be met
and overcome in the course of every analysis. I have given this point
such detailed consideration because I am about to inform you that our
dynamic conception of the neurosis is based on this experience with the
resistance of neurotic patients against the banishment of their
symptoms. Breuer and I both originally practiced psycho-therapy by means
of hypnosis. Breuer's first patient was treated throughout under a
condition of hypnotic suggestibility, and I at first followed his
example. I admit that my work at that time progressed easily and
agreeably and also took much less time. But the results were capricious
and not permanent; therefore I finally gave up hypnotism. Then only did
I realize that no insight into the forces which produce these diseases
was possible as long as one used hypnotism. The condition of hypnosis
could prevent the physician from realizing the existence of a
resistance. Hypnosis drives back the resistance and frees a certain
field for the work of analysis, but similarly to the doubt in the
compulsion neurosis, in so doing it clogs the boundaries of this field
till they become impenetrable. That is why I can say that true
psychoanalysis began when the help of hypnotism was renounced.
But if the establishment of the resistance thus becomes a matter of such
importance, then surely we must give our caution full rein, and follow
up any doubts as to whether we are not all too ready in our assumption
of their existence. Perhaps there really are neurotic cases in which
associations appear for other reasons, perhaps the arguments against our
hypothesis really deserve more consideration and we are unjustified in
conveniently rejecting all intellectual criticisms of analysis as a
resistance. Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, but our judgment was by no
means readily arrived at. We had opportunity to observe every critical
patient from the first sign of the resistance till after its
disappearance. In the course of the treatment, the resistance is
moreover constantly changing in intensity. It is always on the increase
as we approach a new theme, is strongest at the height of its
elaboration, and dies down again when this theme has been abandoned.
Furthermore, unless we have made some unusual and awkward technical
error, we never have to deal with the full measure of resistance of
which the patient is capable. We could therefore convince ourselves that
the same man took up and discarded his critical attitude innumerable
times in the course of the analysis. Whenever we are on the point of
bringing before his consciousness some piece of unconscious material
which is especially painful to him, then he is critical in the extreme.
Even though he had previously understood and accepted a great deal,
nevertheless all record of these gains seems now to have been wiped out.
He may, in his desire to resist at any cost, present a picture of
veritable emotional feeblemindedness. If one succeeds in helping him to
overcome this new resistance, then he regains his insight and his
understanding. Thus his criticism is not an independent function to be
respected as such; it plays the role of handy-man to his emotional
attitude and is guided by his resistance. If something displeases him,
he can defend himself against it very ingeniously and appear most
critical. But if something strikes his fancy, then he may show himself
easily convinced. Perhaps none of us are very different, and the patient
under analysis shows this dependence of the intellect on the emotional
life so plainly only because, under the analysis, he is so hard pressed.
In what way shall we now account for the observation that the patient so
energetically resists our attempts to rid him of his symptoms and to
make his psychic processes function in a normal way? We tell ourselves
that we have here come up against strong forces which oppose any change
in the condition; furthermore, that these forces must be identical with
those which originally brought about the condition. Some process must
have been functional in the building up of these symptoms, a process
which we can now reconstruct by means of our experiences in solving the
meaning of the symptoms. We already know from Breuer's observations that
the existence of a symptom presupposes that some psychic process was not
carried to its normal conclusion, so that it could not become conscious.
The symptom is the substitute for that which did not take place. Now we
know where the forces whose existence we suspect must operate. Some
violent antagonism must have been aroused to prevent the psychic process
in question from reaching consciousness, and it therefore remained
unconscious. As an unconscious thought it had the power to create a
symptom. The same struggle during the analytic treatment opposes anew
the efforts to carry this unconscious thought over into consciousness.
This process we felt as a resistance. That pathogenic process which is
made evident to us through the resistance, we will name _repression_.
We are now ready to obtain a more definite idea of this process of
repression. It is the preliminary condition for the formation of
symptoms; it is also a thing for which we have no parallel. If we take
as prototype an impulse, a psychological process which is striving to
convert itself into action, we know that it may succumb before a
rejection, which we call "repudiation" or "condemnation." In the course
of this struggle, the energy which the impulse had at its disposal was
withdrawn from it, it becomes powerless; yet it may subsist in the form
of a memory. The whole process of decision occurs with the full
knowledge of the ego. The state of affairs is very different if we
imagine that this same impulse has been subjected to repression. In that
case, it would retain its energy and there would be no memory of it
left; in addition, the process of repression would be carried out
without the knowledge of the ego. Through this comparison, however, we
have come no nearer understanding the nature of repression.
I now go into the theoretical ideas which alone have shown themselves
useful in making the conception of repression more definite. It is above
all necessary that we progress from a purely descriptive meaning of the
word "unconscious" to its more systematic meaning; that is, we come to a
point where we must call the consciousness or unconsciousness of a
psychic process only one of its attributes, an attribute which is,
moreover, not necessarily unequivocal. If such a process remained
unconscious, then this separation from consciousness is perhaps only an
indication of the fate to which it has submitted and not this fate
itself. To bring this home to us more vividly, let us assume that every
psychological process--with one exception, which I will go into
later--first exists in an unconscious state or phase and only goes over
from this into a conscious phase, much as a photographic picture is
first a negative and then becomes a picture by being printed. But not
every negative need become a positive, and just as little is it
necessary that every unconscious psychological process should be changed
into a conscious one. We find it advantageous to express ourselves as
follows: Any particular process belongs in the first place to the
psychological system of the unconscious; from this system it can under
certain conditions go over into the system of the conscious. The crudest
conception of these systems is the one which is most convenient for us,
namely, a representation in space. We will compare the system of the
unconscious to a large ante-chamber, in which the psychic impulses rub
elbows with one another, as separate beings. There opens out of this
ante-chamber another, a smaller room, a sort of parlor, which
consciousness occupies. But on the threshold between the two rooms there
stands a watchman; he passes on the individual psychic impulses, censors
them, and will not let them into the parlor if they do not meet with his
approval. You see at once that it makes little difference whether the
watchman brushes a single impulse away from the threshold, or whether he
drives it out again after it has already entered the parlor. It is a
question here only of the extent of his watchfulness, and the timeliness
of his judgment. Still working with this simile, we proceed to a further
elaboration of our nomenclature. The impulses in the ante-chamber of the
unconscious cannot be seen by the conscious, which is in the other room;
therefore for the time being they must remain unconscious. When they
have succeeded in pressing forward to the threshold, and have been sent
back by the watchman, then they are unsuitable for consciousness and we
call them _suppressed_. Those impulses, however, which the watchman has
permitted to cross the threshold have not necessarily become conscious;
for this can happen only if they have been successful in attracting to
themselves the glance of the conscious. We therefore justifiably call
this second room the system of the _fore-conscious_. In this way the
process of becoming conscious retains its purely descriptive sense.
Suppression then, for any individual impulse, consists in not being able
to get past the watchman from the system of the unconscious to that of
the fore-conscious. The watchman himself is long since known to us; we
have met him as the resistance which opposed us when we attempted to
release the suppression through analytic treatment.
Now I know you will say that these conceptions are as crude as they are
fantastic, and not at all permissible in a scientific discussion. I know
they are crude--indeed, we even know that they are incorrect, and if we
are not very much mistaken we have a better substitute for them in
readiness. Whether they will continue then to appear so fantastic to you
I do not know. For the time being, they are useful conceptions, similar
to the manikin _Ampere_ who swims in the stream of the electric current.
In so far as they are helpful in the understanding of our observation,
they are by no means to be despised. I should like to assure you that
these crude assumptions go far in approximating the actual
situation--the two rooms, the watchman on the threshold between the two,
and consciousness at the end of the second room in the role of an
onlooker. I should also like to hear you admit that our
designations--_unconscious_, _fore-conscious_, and _conscious_ are much
less likely to arouse prejudice, and are easier to justify than others
that have been used or suggested--such as _sub-conscious_,
_inter-conscious_, _between-conscious_, etc.
This becomes all the more important to me if you should warn me that
this arrangement of the psychic apparatus, such as I have assumed in the
explanation of neurotic symptoms, must be generally applicable and must
hold for normal functioning as well. In that, of course, you are right.
We cannot follow this up at present, but our interest in the psychology
of the development of the symptom must be enormously increased if
through the study of pathological conditions we have the prospect of
finding a key to the normal psychic occurrences which have been so well
concealed.