“Why do (Don't) You Ask?” Transference and the Desire (Not) to Know

In the novel Blood Meridian, a man known as the judge posed a provocative question: “Was it always your idea that if you do not speak, you would not be recognized?” The man he addressed, obviously on the defensive, denied seeking the judge: “I never come here huntin' you.” The judge implicitly dismissed his disclaimer and skeptically wondered why the man was there, to which he replied: “Everybody don't have to have a reason to be someplace.” Whereupon the judge said:

That's so. They do not have to have a reason. But order is not set aside because of their indifference…. Let me put it this way, If it is so that they themselves have no reason and yet are indeed here, must they not be here by reason of some other? And if this is so, can you guess who that other might be? (McCarthy, 1985, p. 382)

The passage from which this exerpt is taken may be read as an allegory of the psychoanalytic encounter in certain respects. To begin with, patients in psychoanalysis cannot give adequate reasons for being in the difficult places they occupy in life. They fail to recognize as their own the desires that speak through their symptoms, parapraxes, and “resistances.” The surly words, “I never come here huntin' you,” are like negative transference, which results whenever patients feel pressured to account for something that is not subjectively real.

Inevitably, as the analytic experience ceases to be the “good time” sought by people in the bar where the above conversation took place, our patients also express a wish to avoid the analyst/judge. The judge confronts everyone with a crucial question: “If it is so that they themselves have no reason and yet are indeed here, must they not be here by reason of some other? And if this is so, can you guess who that other might be?”