Silence in the Analytic Session

Story-telling is often only a substitute for enjoyments denied to us by Heaven or ourselves.

Thomas Mann: The Holy Sinner.

This paper deals with a part of the problem which formed the basis of the discussion held by the Philadelphia Association for Psycho-analysis in 1954 (20) on deviations from the standard technique in adult analysis. Amongst other, specifically neurotic disturbances which necessitate deviation from the strict application of analytic rules, inhibition of speech was mentioned as one which places the patient in a precarious position. This inability of some patients to speak in the analytic session was the starting-point of my reflections, and I had brought it up for discussion in the Hungarian Psycho-Analytic Society in 1934. The need for discretion in regard to the patients in question made it advisable to refrain from publication at that time. Death has removed this obstacle, but the problem is still alive. It is one of the oldest problems of analytic technique. It has, in fact, existed as long as the method of free association itself. We meet it either as an inhibition of speech in general or as a difficulty in communication during the treatment, in the form of constant or intermittent silence during the sessions.

Such manifestations of resistance which stop the free flow of associations and their manifold causes have always been objects of research in analytic work and literature. But naturally such research was only possible within the limits of the then contemporaneous state of psycho-analytic theory. Even a short survey shows for how long silence was explained mainly on the basis of the instinctual side of the personality. Thus Freud (13), giving advice on technique, points to transference difficulties as the cause of the breakdown of associations. 'No sooner is this explanation given than the obstacle is removed, or at least the absence of thoughts has been transformed into a refusal to speak.'

Another reference (14) relates to the p