On Specifying the Scientific Methodology of Psychoanalysis

In speaking of a new romance during the second year of her analysis, an analysand who had originally sought treatment shortly after the untimely loss of her mother remarked that “passion is pain's pawn.” She paused as she was taken by the gripping but uncertain meaning of her thought. She went on to say that the close proximity between her mother's loss and the ending of her first romantic adventure somehow seemed connected. Her thoughts then turned to the guilt she felt when she left home for school, which she connected to her original thought — “passion is pain's pawn” — and then back to reminiscenses of conflicts with her mother and the pain she felt at her mother's loss. At this point I remarked she seemed to be thinking about the pain associated with her romantic involvements and her mother's loss at the same time, that there was a contiguity in her associations.

“I knew you were going to say that”, she said with irritation. It sounded textbookish to her. I recognized my observation had stirred her, it was that she preferred I not categorize her with what she saw as easy formulas. She felt her original thought had more meaning when she put it in her own way, and went on with this line of thinking. At the close of the hour I suggested the way I had put my observation had made her feel “less special.” In the next several