Glover, E. (1925). Clinical: Von Hattingberg. Zur Analyse der analytischen Situation. Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 1924, Bd. X, S. 34.. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 6:332-334.
Welcome to PEP Web!
Viewing the full text of this document requires a subscription to PEP Web.
If you are coming in from a university from a registered IP address or secure referral page you should not need to log in. Contact your university librarian in the event of problems.
If you have a personal subscription on your own account or through a Society or Institute please put your username and password in the box below. Any difficulties should be reported to your group administrator.
Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing: Clinical: Von Hattingberg. Zur Analyse der analytischen Situation. Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 1924, Bd. X, S. 34.
(1925). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 6:332-334
From the point of view of cathexis, v. Hattingberg regards transference as the investment of objects occupying a certain 'position': feeling, thinking and behaving in regard to these positions (niches) are independent of consciousness. The analytic 'position' influences thinking, etc., in a definite way independent of consciousness and often opposed to it. For example, the recumbent position in analysis represents the necessity for help and is suggestive of the old authority of pre-analytic days. Lying down in the rôle of patient suggests complete self-abandonment during an active operation. It is entirely passive and often conduces to sleep. On the question of analytical 'distance' the author points out that the patient must learn objectivity gradually and that there is a tendency to unreality and impersonality in the recumbent position. In the sitting posture, however, the impression must be avoided that the treatment is conversational: on the other hand the situation of fight is emphasized. A decision on the proper course must be arrived at along the lines of keeping the right distance.
Turning to the analyst's position, he suggests that just as the neurosis
WARNING! This text is printed for the personal use of the PEPWeb subscriber and is copyright to the Journal in which it originally appeared. It is illegal to copy, distribute or circulate it in any form. - 332 -
is a sanctuary for the patient, so the analytic situation is a sanctuary for the analyst, evolved in self-protection and within which repressed instincts can be gratified. The analyst's relation to the patient is a real, actual relation which stirs up the former both consciously and unconsciously: it is a silent combat between personalities during which the analyst has the advantage of safety and position. Whether we like it or not we must play the part of educators, and although this does not imply an attitude of preaching we cannot expect to be able to orientate the patient if we have not ourselves said Yes to Life. The usual methodic restriction of the guiding rôle may lead to passing over difficulties owing to the analyst's unconsciousdesire not to see. The analyst's theory corresponds to the patient's symptoms: it is the expression of the analyst's resistances, of the distance he keeps between the patient and himself. In unsuccessful cases the analyst retires into theory, ignoring the fact either that the requisite energy is not present or that he has not sufficient interest in the patient's sufferings. The analyst's opinions representing his ego, it follows that chiefly ego-instincts are satisfied by theory, patients often reacting either by constant contradiction or by covering evasion by amenability. The sexual component is ultimately sadism represented in reaction by the desire to help suffering. The patient is cruelly exposed or in the case of gradual development of a first true love-feeling is exposed to bitter rejection. Again the play of thought with theoretical ideas helps to compensate for prolonged daily interest in others. Actually only the most direct expression of immediate relationships should be given, not complicated theoretical explanations. The obvious should always be emphasized. Von Hattingberg has found that fractional analysis is often advisable, i.e. suspending the process during stale intervals.
Defining suggestion in general as direct affective stimulation of the individual which activates instinctual mechanisms and in the narrower sense as a state of rapport in which a quite definite instinctual attitude is produced, the author gives his view that suggestibility is a special instinct and that it depends on mental dissociation. He points out, however, that in the overvaluation stage of transference, the patient lies under a suggestion, viz. 'If you come here, you'll get better', and comments on the fact that different schools of analysis bring about cures. Theory and interpretation provide the patient with material on which to gratify his need for conviction and belief, for he must be brought to believe once more in himself and in humanity. Belief must come about through actual experience.
Regarding the specific characteristics of analysis the author describes two stages: (1) freeassociation, a sort of dischargetechnique during which the patient develops freedom, and (2) interpretation, when the material, produced as it were by a third party, is investigated by patient and analyst together, and from being an unassorted heap is reduced to order. It must
WARNING! This text is printed for the personal use of the PEPWeb subscriber and is copyright to the Journal in which it originally appeared. It is illegal to copy, distribute or circulate it in any form. - 333 -
not, however, be kept too much at a distance, indeed objectivity is the most essential and individual part of the analytic situation. Some objectivate without overcoming resistances, in which case objectivation plays the part of a symptom. In general, however, resistance opposes objectivity, as when the transference situation is converted into a sexual situation. The patient must not let this disturb the relationship of respect to the analyst: he must learn that the sex-relationship in a narrow corporeal sense is not an essential expression of love. The paper concludes with a discussion of the thesis that psycho-analytical theory regards libido as the driving force of mental life. Freud's ego and sexual instincts are correlated to power and love, activity and passivity, I and We, etc. The analyst stands in the Oedipus situation to the analysand, the positionbeing that of disturbing the father from within the mother. The father in the patient is overcome.
WARNING! This text is printed for the personal use of the PEPWeb subscriber and is copyright to the Journal in which it originally appeared. It is illegal to copy, distribute or circulate it in any form. - 334 -
Article Citation
Glover, E. (1925). Clinical. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 6:332-334
WARNING! This text is printed for the personal use of the subscriber to PEP Web and is copyright to the Journal in which it originally appeared. It is illegal to copy, distribute or circulate it in any form whatsoever.
