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The illustrations in the previous chapter are not satisfactory and I propose to consider some reasons for this.
Psychoanalytic events cannot be stated directly, indubitably, or incorrigibly any more than can those of other scientific research. I shall use the sign O to denote that which is the ultimate reality represented by terms such as ultimate reality, absolute truth, the godhead, the infinite, the thing-in-itself. O does not fall in the domain of knowledge or learning save incidentally; it can be ‘become’, but it cannot be ‘known’. It is darkness and formlessness but it enters the domain K when it has evolved to a point where it can be known, through knowledge gained by experience, and formulated in terms derived from sensuous experience; its existence is conjectured phenomenologically.
The events of the psychoanalytic experience are transformed and formulated. The value of these formulations can be assessed according to the conditions under which the transformations are effected. Formulations of the events of analysis made in the course of analysis must possess value different from that of formulations made extra-sessionally. Their value therapeutically is greater if they are conducive to transformations in O; less if conducive to transformations in K.
The experience of psychoanalysis affords material impossible to equal from any other source. It follows that this material should be available in full to the psychoanalyst. The analysis that every psychoanalyst is obliged to undergo as part of his training is necessary because it removes obstacles to participation in the psychoanalytic experience; it has many facets, but for the psychoanalyst none can compare in importance with this; what I have to say is ancillary to this. It is impossible to undergo an analysis without learning about
psychoanalysis as practised by one particular psychoanalyst; this is a misfortune rather than an advantage. Furthermore, established beliefs and conventions, hardened habits of th