The Toxic Response in Modern Psychoanalysis

Some twenty years have passed since the publication of Spotnitz's paper, The Toxoid Response (1963). The Spotnitz paper suggests a resolution of resistances by means of three factors: emotional induction, immunization, and resistance reinforcement.

In the last twenty years modern analysts have learned through their practice that their interventions aimed at the resolution of resistances are not always successful, and, indeed, these interventions may inadvertently rigidify resistances, or, in some cases, make it impossible to successfully analyze the patient. In attempts to analyze repetitive patterns such interventions that attempt to be toxoid may indeed turn out to be toxic.

The toxic response is defined in this paper as a response by the analyst that causes harm or damage, inadvertently or unintentionally, to the patient. This paper is an attempt to define and delimit this subject, namely, what causes the toxic reaction, the contraindications for treatment, the prevention, detection, and treatment of toxic responses. This paper is in keeping with the goals suggested by Spotnitz (1976) as follows:

Consistently constructive emotional interchange with our patients and the elimination of errors that are grossly contraindicated would be facilitated by the development of a science of toxipsychology, which would perform a service similar to that of toxicology in clinical medicine. I anticipate that toxipsychology will eventually come into being and provide vital information

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about the toxic effects of certain psychological communications and attitudes, in contradistinction to therapeutic psychology and psychotherapy. As this knowledge of therapeutic versus toxic psychology and psychotherapy accumulates, it is reasonable to assume that psychotherapy in the many areas of psychological and psychosomatic illness will become more efficient, (p. 20)

Review of the Pertinent Literature

Toxic responses on the part of the analyst probably go back to the very dawn of psychoa