Interpretation of a Resistance: The Analytic Treatment as a Neurotic Defense

The patient whose resistance is referred to in the title of this communication is a woman of forty-five, unmarried and extremely ignorant in sexual matters. Indeed until her middle thirties she had no clear ideas concerning childbirth. She was protected against sexual interests and strivings by an extreme childish dependence on maternal surrogates, and by an identification with a brother six years her senior, which she had developed on the basis of penis envy.

She had tried to shape her life in accordance with this identification, but her effort had not led to much good fortune. The brother himself had not mastered his own castration complex, and developed numerous illnesses because of his sense of guilt. The patient followed him closely in this. She remained dangerously near to the original conflict and consequently was almost completely dominated by castration anxiety. Every step in the direction of this identification was reacted to with a severe sense of guilt, so that she either became ill, or felt threatened by an impending illness. The attainment of a feminine identification was still more difficult for her. This was due not only to the usual oedipus anxiety but also, in my opinion, to the circumstance that her mother had died while psychotic–which meant that an identification with her would entail a most serious threat.

During the analysis, in due time, she began to masturbate–at first with strong feelings of guilt, which gradually diminished till she was able to masturbate very freely. Often, however, she forced herself to masturbate to relieve a feeling of tension in her head and uncomfortable sensations in the genital region. For a long while her attitude oscillated between being feminine and expressing intense wishes to have coitus, and being vindictive and disappointed, reproaching the analyst because all her activity was not solving anything–she was repeating the same performance without gaining more than temporary relief. It became evident th