Problems of Psychoanalytic Technique

Working Through and Some Special Technical Problems

In a psychoanalytic cure we are concerned with an abundance of phenomena. The aim in these discussions has been to provide a perspective at the cost of details; to direct attention not only to the trees but also to the forest. We have reviewed interpretation from the dynamic, economic, and structural points of view, have discussed the elaboration of derivatives, the demonstration of them, the alteration thus caused in the patient's attitude of resistance, and the ensuing appearance of less distorted derivatives which are in turn treated in the same way. There should now follow a demonstration of how all this does away with the isolation from the total personality of what was previously warded off, of how the arrested development is set in motion and infantile sexuality transformed into adult sexuality so that satisfaction of instinct, condemnation and sublimation of instinct become possible. What the analyst contributes to all these results is always merely the interpretation of new material. Even if there are infinitely many more problems about details of interpretation, it almost seems as if we were essentially through with the discussion. We are reminded again of Freud's dictum that instruction in analytic technique may be compared with learning to play chess. The opening and concluding situations are typical and relatively easy to present in their rudiments; the complications of the intermediate moves are too diverse and can be learned only from actual cases.54 The details in the course of an analysis that fill with vivid life the structural framework we set up at