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Without resistance there can be no analysis (Freud, 1914; Jones, 1953). Resistance may be defined as a “counterforce in the patient, operating against the progress of the analysis” (Greenson, 1967, p. 60). These statements are both true, yet they appear to be mutually contradictory. How can an essential element in the analytic process also present an obstacle to it? To account for this seeming paradox, one must first understand the origin and nature of resistance and what role it plays in analysis.*
One approach to this question is to consider what the analytic process would be “ideally,” in the absence of resistance. We know that the answers to all of the patient's problems lie within him. When resistance is resolved, we observe that repressions are lifted and submerged material rises to the surface. Were the patient free of resistance and able to unburden himself without restrictions, the total process of his psychic development would be revealed. All the events of his life with their appropriate affect, all the conflicts associated with them, all the distortions in psychic development that proceeded from them, and all the protean transference attitudes, would pass in review, and the healing process would take care of itself.
Regrettably, this utopian ideal is unattainable. From the beginning