Transference: Notes on the History of a Paradox

I am lying

Nothing can provide more insight into the historical events that underlie the theory of transference than the famous statement—uttered thousands of years ago by a Greek philosopher—which affirmed its very own falsity. For the first time in the history of human thought, this philosopher had provided disconcerting evidence of a statement that is true if it is false and vice versa. Just like that of Epimenides, the transference paradox has produced significant theoretical developments, but unlike those stemming from Epimenides's paradox, the former have sometimes ultimately concealed the burning self-contradictory nature of the origins of transference, taking more or less diverging paths with respect to Freud's. Freud remained instead firmly tied to the paradox like Ulysses to the mast, in order to listen to the sirens of transference without sinking to the sea-bottom. However, whenever paradoxes are left hidden, it is only to then overwhelmingly move back to the centre of the stage from which they were excluded and to resume acting along with all their consequences, themselves paradoxical from a logical standpoint.

This is clearly illustrated in three passages from the recent literature. The first ascribes an unexpressed, speculative but highly plausible thought to a reticent Freud while he was writing The Dynamics of Transference (1912). The thought would take on the impossible task of deciding how to express to future generations of analysts the basic assumptions and implications of a self-contradictory concept: ≪I see that transference always lies behind treatment difficulty. I think it's a good excuse for the difficulty. Yes, I'm sure it's an excuse, but why do patients keep using that particular excuse? I guess it's a good excuse because it is a small, vivid sample of their genuine reason for non-cooperation. But patients seem too frantically dedicated to that excuse for it to be merely an example of what they're afraid of. Actually, I have to