Freud's Technique: More from Experience Than Theory

Puzzled and perhaps a little annoyed by the persistent idea that interpreting the transference is the only way to effect analytic change, Sander M. Abend (2009) tracks the dogma back to Freud's prestructural writings on technique. A masterful teacher, Abend plainly and cogently lays out the line of thought that led Freud to this belief. I know of no more concise and sympathetic exposition of early treatment theory than this, and I personally believe that Abend's reevocation of our misty past is by itself worth the price of admission.

Having given the early ideas a really fair hearing, Abend then points to the greater sophistication of later theory and technique, and asks why, long after Freud had opened up larger vistas, he never disabused analysts of the idea that treatment progresses solely by interpreting the transference. Abend finds a clue to this riddle in the early theory of a quasi-physical libido, which Freud associated with the vivid image of catharsis. Could it be, Abend asks, that Freud was unable to pry his imagination loose from libido theory even while he was developing a subtler and more scientific theory of ego and defense? That would explain why, among the many useful approaches suggested by his later theory, only this early one won Freud's endorsement. If so, we would have to say that Freud's atavistic loyalty to libido theory discouraged analysts from employing all the tools their broadened rationale made available. Although Abend does not deny that many analysts have their own reasons