You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Although both books deal with technique, it is important to note the difference in their titles. Menninger indicates that he wishes to concern himself chiefly with the “theory” of psychoanalytic technique; Saul with its “technique and practice.” Aside from the possible difference in scope, there remains the important question how much of a coming together of the two there would be if Menninger's “theory” were brought down to “technique and practice.” As they stand there is a wide gap between them. True, both seek to establish their orthodoxy by frequent reference to Freud, and both emphasize transference and resistance as basic, yet the tenors of the books differ and so, presumably, would the results achieved by each technique.
Menninger describes an analytic technique which is essentially a process, with a beginning, a driving forward (regressively and progressively), and an end. In its essence it is above doctrine, about which more will be said later. It has a somewhat epic quality to it. It is a struggle of a human being toward a light which he but dimly perceives. Along the journey he may often want to settle for less, turn back, or turn into side roads which he has often taken before, all the time fitting the analyst into roles which serve such objectives. He may want to climb on the shoulders of the analyst and sit the journey out, not knowing that he cannot thereby discover the strength in his own legs, the courage in his own soul, or even recognize the light he finally beholds for what it is. The analyst makes the journey possible for the patient, but doesn't make it for him.
The process itself then is the essential part of the “analysis.” One may conceptualize what happens within the process and what the analyst does (and doesn't do) in various ways. From this book alone one would not know how tenaciously Menninger does or does not hold to Freudian developmental stages, libidinal fixations, castration fears, life and death instincts. He refers little to these