Chapter 4. Transformations: Change From Learning to Growth

Theory leaves us free to give Ta β the value of the analyst's verbalization of his experience in the session, or the emotional state induced in his patient. That the analyst works on his patient's emotions as a painter might work on his canvas would be repugnant to psychoanalytic theory and practice. The painter who works on his public's emotions with an end in view is a propagandist with the outlook of the poster artist. He does not intend his public to be free in its choice of the use to which it puts the communication he makes. The analyst's position is akin to that of the painter who by his art adds to his public's experience. Since psychoanalysts do not aim to run the patient's life but to enable him to run it according to his lights and therefore to know what his lights are, Ta β either in the form of interpretation or scientific paper should represent the psychoanalyst's verbal representation of an emotional experience. An attempt to exclude by restriction to verbal expression any element from Ta that would make it pass from the domain of communication of knowledge to propaganda would be inadequate. Verbal expression must be limited so that it expresses truth without any implication other than the implication that it is true in the analyst's opinion. How this is to be attempted lies outside the scope of this discussion, except for certain implications which I shall now consider. The first concerns the route by which we have arrived at this conclusion. It is sometimes assumed that the motive for scientific work is an abstract love for truth. The argument I have followed implies that the grounds for limiting the values that may be substituted for Ta β to true statements lies in the nature of values not so limited and their relationship to other components in the T theory. If truth is not essential to all values of Ta β, Ta β must be regarded

as expressed in and by manipulation of the emotions of patient or public and not in or by the interpretation; truth is