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Psychoanalytic Review, 1947, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, pp. 58–75.
In oral neurotics the following triad is found: (1) Masochistic wish of being deprived by the mother. (2) Justification of indignation and pseudo-aggression because of unwillingness to recognize the wish to be refused and provocation of refusal. (3) Self-pity and enjoyment of masochistic pleasure. Orally regressed neurotics in analysis present specific difficulties characteristic for this group. They refuse to give associations and evidence much hatred and suspicion. The most typical resistance is the constant projection of the 'bad mother' upon the analyst with resultant craving for 'injustices', and reactive pseudo-aggression. Another difficulty oral patients present is a facility of 'sucking out', draining or wearing down the analyst. The specific technique of these patients consists of constant 'elimination' of everything they learn in analysis. The patient cannot use the information he 'sucks' from the analyst since he must immediately 'eliminate' everything achieved in that way. Orally regressed neurotics fall into three types: (1) The 'Silent'. (2) The 'Logorrhoeic'. (3) The 'Draining'. All use pseudo-aggression as defence against the wish to be refused. In the 'silent' type the pseudo-aggression is directly visible; in the 'logorrhoeic' type it is disguised as giving. What the patient gives, however, is malice. In every case of logorrhoea, the suspicion of oral regression is present. The 'draining' type is somewhere between the first two types.