Chapter 3 Wish Fulfilment and the Mastery of Trauma

One of Joseph Sandler’s most important psychoanalytic contributions has been his work on the theory of motivation. By following the evolution of his thinking over time as one can, for example, in the cogent and readable summary, ‘Towards a reconsideration of the psychoanalytic theory of motivation’ (Sandler 1989) it is evident that Sandler has consistently urged analysts away from reductive theoretical assumptions and towards a phenomenological conception of human motivation, especially one derived from observations made in the clinical situation. In this regard, I would like to single out for emphasis two of Sandler’s ideas: first, his 1974 recommendation that we consider a whole array of ‘peremptory urges’ (53) that give rise to conflict, rather than restricting ourselves to thinking exclusively in terms of instinctual drive derivatives; and second, his formulation of a hierarchy of pleasurable and unpleasurable feelings that can act on the psyche as a demand for work (Sandler and Joffe 1966). I would suggest that these two ideas point us towards an expansion of the psychoanalytic concept of wish that gives it greater clinical applicability.

My somewhat provocative proposal is that if Freud (1920) had been working with such an expanded concept, he would not have erred as he did in his analysis of post-traumatic dreams and other symptoms in which painful experiences are repetitively re-created. As it was, Freud failed to discern the role of wish fulfilment in these phenomena; and his mistake set the stage for the misconception, still widely held, that wish fulfilment and mastery of trauma are separate, unrelated endeavours. After briefly reviewing the ideas of Freud and those who followed him, I will explain and illustrate the view, consistent with the direction Sandler has taken in his writings about motivation, that wish fulfilment and mastery of trauma are complementary aspects of the same psychic activity.

Let us begin with the clinical pheno