The Retarding Forces in Analytic Treatment

ANY study of the retarding forces which operate to block the patient from recovery must begin with a clear concept of their function, since we cannot accept as adequate Freud's opinion that they were due to the patient's “insistence on living out childhood repressions,” or “overly strong instinctual drives.” The function of retarding forces, as we see it, is to protect and maintain the pseudo-solutions which have for the patient the value of enabling him somehow to hold himself together and to go on living. This is best expressed as: “What every patient really wants at first when he comes to you is to have a bigger and better neurosis.” That is, to maintain his righteous indignation against people without antagonizing them; to attain his neurotic goals (his pseudo-solutions) with fewer inhibitions and inconveniences. He struggles to maintain the only things he sees as safe—his pseudo-solutions, which he thinks of as his achievements and his only sources of safety. He wishes the analyst's attention to be directed to those who annoy him, to inconveniences and obstacles which stand in the way of a more successful achievement of his pseudo-solutions. The retarding forces are those forces with which he opposes anything which might lead to the removal of the pseudo-solutions, any attack on them, exposure of them, any revelations as to their real nature. The violence and tenacity with which he is driven to use the retarding forces are determined by the extent to which a particular solution is being relied upon by him, by the acuteness of his need for it, or by the amount of rage and terror he feels when this solution is about to be denied him, or be undermined.

During the long period at the outset of analysis, the patient will meet all interpretations in the spirit of his favored or most valued solution. Whether interpretations are accepted or refused will depend on whether or not they are disturbing to the maintenance of this solution, and the retarding