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… distance, after all, was invented by man and has no meaning outside the context of human space; it separated Hero from Leander and Marathon from Athens, but does not separate one pebble from another.
Clinically, the unique achievement of Freud is that he invented and established a therapeutic space and distance for the patient and the analyst. In this space and distance the relating becomes feasible only through the capacity in each to sustain illusion and to work with it. The vehicle of this working with illusion is symbolic discourse, commonly referred to as free association by the patient and interpretation by the analyst. The relational process through which the illusion operates is the transference.
I am fully aware the “illusion” is a treacherous concept to introduce in this context because, both in the English and French languages, it has an almost exclusively prejudicial usage in terms of active or passive deception or distortion of sensory or ideational data. Only Webster's Third New International Dictionary gives a definition that comes somewhat close to the meaning I wish to utilize for the word “illusion.” It defines one of its connotations as:
Perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause or permit misinterpretation of its actual nature either because of the ambiguous qualities of the thing perceived or because of the personal characteristics of the one perceiving, or because of both factors.
In spite of the prejudicial connotations of the word “illusion,” it is an ironic fact that few persons will deny that human life would be impossible without the ubiquitous role of illusion in it (cf. André Maurois, 1968).
It is my contention here that Freud created a space, time, and process which potentialize that area of illusion where symbolic discourse can actualize. Thus Freud put maximum responsibility on language for the cure of emotional and personality disorders (Khan, 1970).
Ernst Cassirer (1946) has astutely defined the e