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The background of this paper is this: I have been attempting to develop an alternative language for Freudian psychoanalysis. I have called it an action language and have contrasted it with the mechanistic language of force, structure and mechanism that constitutes Freud's metapsychology. I have set forth the rationale of this action language and some of its principles elsewhere (1973a), and have already applied it to the concept of internalization (1972b) and the concepts of self and identity (1973b). In the present paper I apply the action language to the idea of resistance, using four approaches.
The first approach is a logical and linguistic analysis of the concept of resistance. The value of regarding resistance as an action—'to resist' or 'resisting'—is expounded, and there is some development of the implications of this approach for our understanding of such key concepts as psychic structure, the dynamic unconscious, determinism, and responsibility. Also discussed are the interrelated words, 'can't', 'won't' and 'don't', which present fundamental conceptual and technical problems for psychoanalysis.