Fear of Object Loss as a Resistance to Change in Analysis

I wish to call attention to a particular form of resistance to change in analysis or in prolonged intensive analytic psychotherapy. I have observed in certain patients that a particular character trait, superego attitude, or symptom is ineluctably tied to a highly cathected, usually idealized object representation. As a result, the relative immutability of the clinical symptomatology is the result of the avoidance of the pain of loss of the object representation. As Freud wrote in “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917), “it is a matter of general observation that people never willingly abandon a libidinal position…” (p. 244). In more current terminology, persistent compromise formations are difficult to change because such change would result in the unpleasure associated with object loss. I will demonstrate my thesis from a number of clinical examples drawn from my own clinical practice. I will also discuss briefly the repetition compulsion and certain aspects of identification and character formation.

Ms. P

The patient came to analysis because she was distraught about her life situation. She had been fired from a prestigious job two years before and her father had died around the same time. However, she