Freud - Remembering Repeating Working Through

7/28/2019 Freud - Remembering Repeating Working Through

1/6

ERINNERN, WIEDERHOLEN UND DURCHARBEITEN(a) GERMAN EDITIONS:

1914 Int. Z. Psychoanal., 2 (6),485-91.1918 S.K.S.N., 4, 441-52. (1922, 2nd ed.)1924 Technik und Metapsychol., 109-19.1925 G.S., 6, 109-19.1931 Neurosenlehreund Technik, 385-96.1946 G.W., 10, 126-36.

(b) ENGLISH TRANSLATION:'Further Recommendations in the Technique of PsychoAnalysis: Recollection, Repetition, and Working-Through'

1924 c.P., 2, 366-76. (Tr. Joan Riviere.)The present translation, with a changed title, is a modifiedversion of the one published in 1924.

At its original appearance (which was at the end of 1914)the title of this paper ran: 'Weitere Ratsch1age zur Technikder Psychoanalyse (II): Erinnern, Wiederholen und Durcharbeiten.' The title of the English translation of 1924, quotedabove, is a rendering of this. From 1924 onwards the Germaneditions adopted the shorter title.This paper is noteworthy, apart from its technical interest,

for containing the first appearance of the concepts of the 'compulsion to repeat' (p. 150) and of 'working-through' (p. 155).

REMEMBERING, REPEAAND WORKING-THROUG(FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS ON TH

OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS IIIT seems to me not unnecessary to keep on reof the far-reaching changes which psycho-anhas undergone since its first beginnings. In itof Breuer's catharsis-it consisted in bringingthe moment at which the symptom was forsistently endeavouring to reproduce the mevolved in tha,t situation, in order to direct thethe path of conscious activity. Rememberingwith the help of the hypnotic state, were whaaimed at. Next, when hypnosis had been gbecame one of discovering from the patient'swhat he failed to remember. The resistancevented by the work of interpretation and byknown to the patient. The situations which haformation of the symptom and the other sitbehind the moment at which the illness brokeplace as the focus of interest; but the elemreceded into the background and seemed to bexpenditure of work whiclLthe_~d-to-makeobligea to-OVercome his criticism- of his freacCOraance with- the fundamental rule oFinally, there was evolved the consistent teday, in which the analyst_gives up the atparticular moment or problem into focus. Hwith studying whatever is ~nt for the tsurface of the patient's mind, and he employpretation mainly for the purpose of recognizi

in: vol. 12 of Standard Edition (1950), 145-157. (originally published 1914)


2/6

-

148 FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS ON TECHNIQUEremained the same. Descriptively speaking, it is to fillin gaps inmemory; dynamically speaking, it is to overcome resistancesdueto repression.We must still be grateful to the old hypnotic technique forhaving brought before us single psychical processes of analysisin an isolated or schematic form. Only this could have given usthe courage ourselves to create more complicated situations inthe analytic treatment and to keep them clear before us.In these hypnotic treatments the process of rememberingtook a very simple form. The patient put himself back into anearlier situation, which he seemed never to confuse with the

present one, and gave an account of the mental processesbelonging to it, in so far as they had remained normal; he thenadded to this whatever was able to emerge as a result oftransforming the processes that had at the time been unconscious into conscious ones.At this point I will interpolate a few remarks which every

analyst has found confirmed in his observations.1 Forgettingimpressions, scenes or experiences nearly always reduces itselfto shutting them off. When the patient talks about these'forgotten' things he seldomfails to add: 'As a matter offact I'vealways known it; only I've never thought of it.' He often expresses disappointment at the fact that not enough things comeinto his head that he can call 'forgotten'-that he has neverthought of since they happened. Nevertheless, even this desireis fulfilled, especially in the case of conversion hysterias. 'Forgetting' becomes still further restricted when we assessat theirtrue value the screen memories which are so generally present.In some cases I have had an impression that the familiar childhood amnesia, which istheoretically soimportant to us, is completely counterbalanced by screen memories. Not only some butall ofwhat is essential from childhood has been retained in these

(II) REMEMBERING AND REPEATIwhich, as purely internal acts, can be contrastsions and experiences, must, in their relation toremembering, be considered separately. In thparticularly often happens that something iwhich could never have been 'forgotten' becauseany time noticed-was never conscious. As regtaken by psychical events it seems to make no dever whether such a 'thought-connection' wasthen forgotten or whether it never managedscious at all. The conviction which the patientcourse of his analysis is quite independentmemory.

In the many different forms of obsessional nticular, forgetting is mostly restricted to dissconnections, failing to draw the right conclusiomemOrIes.Ther~is one special classof experiences of theance for which nomemory can as a rule be recov

experiences which occurred in ver early childnot un erstoo ate tlme but which were sub~d and interpreted. One gains a knowledge odream~ and one is obliged to belIeve ill them onpelling evidence provided by the fabric of theover, we can ascertain for ourselves that the presistances have been overcome, no longer invoof any memory of them (any senseof familiaritya ground for refusing to accept them. This mcalls for somuch critical caution and introducesnovel and startling that I shall reserve it for asion in connection with suitable materiaVUnder the new technique very little, and ofteof this delightfully smooth course of events.2 T


3/6


4/6


5/6

154 FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS ON TECHNIQUEhappen that the untamed instincts assert themselves beforethere istime to put the reins ofthe transference on them, or thatthe bonds which attach the patient to the treatment are brokenby him in a repetitive action. As an extreme examp-leof this, Imay cite the case of an elderly lady who had repeatedly fledfrom her house and her husband in a twilight state and goneno one knew where, without ever having become conscious ofher motive for decamping in this way. She came to treatmentwith a marked affectionate transference which grew in intensitywith uncanny rapidity in the first few days; by the end ofthe week she had decamped from me, too, before I had hadtime to say anything to her which might lAlVeprevented thisrepetition. _The main instrument, however, for curbing the p~mpulsion to repeat and for turning it into a motive for remembering !lesin:the nandling ofthe transference. -we render the compulsion-harmless, and indeed useful, by giving it the right toassert itself in a definite field. We admit it into the transference

as a playground in which it isallowed to expapd in almost complete freedom and in which it is expected to display to us everything in the way of pathogenic instincts that is hidden in thepatient's mind. Provided only that the patient showscomplianceenough to respect the necessary conditions of the analysis, weregularly succeed in giving all the symptoms ofthe illness a newtransference meaning1 and in replacing his ordinary neurosis bya 'transference-neurosis' 2 of which he can be cured by thetherapeutic work. The transference thus creates an intermediateregion between illness and real lifethrough which the transitionfrom the one to the other is made. The new condition has takenover all the features ofthe illness; but it represents an artificialillness which is at every point accessibleto our intervention. Itis a piece ofreal experience, but one which has been made possible by especially favourable conditions, and it is of a provi

(II) WORKING-THROUGHawakening ofthe memories, which appear wit were, after the resistance has been overcomI might break off at this point but for thewhich obliges me to discuss a further pointnique. The first step in overcoming the resiswe know, by the analyst's uncovering the renever recognized by the patient, and acquainNow it seems that beginners in analytic practlook on this introductory step as constitutingwork. I have often been asked to advise upondoctor complained that he had pointed out hpatient and that nevertheless no change hadresistance had become all the stronger, and twas more obscure than ever. The treatment sheadway. This gloomy foreboding alwaysThe treatment was as a rule progressing mostanalyst had merely forgotten that giving thecould not result in its immediate cessation. Opatient time to become more conversant wwith which he has now become acquainted, 1to overcome it, by continuing, in defiancework according to the fundamental rule of anthe resistance is at its height can the analystmon with his patieht, discoverthe repressed inwhich'are feeding the resistance; and it is t)1iswhich convinces the patient ofthe existenceimpulses. The doctor has nothing elseto do ththings take their course, a course which cannalways hastened. If he holds fast to this convbe spared the illusion of having failed whenducting the treatment on the right lines.This working-through of the resistances mout to be an arduous task for the subject of


6/6

Freud - Remembering Repeating Working Through

Documents

Transcript of Freud - Remembering Repeating Working Through