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Since it is well known that the result of treatment depends on the elaboration of the forces which oppose the psychoanalytical process, it is obvious that the study and understanding of resistances has important implications for clinical practice. Moreover it is also common knowledge that psychoanalysis reached a mature phase when Freud suggested giving preference to the interpretation of resistances rather than to the content brought to the session by the patient (Freud 1910a, 144). The application of this new and technically more advanced trend was widespread and persuasive on the clinical level (Freud 1914b, 147; 1920, 163). Nevertheless we should realise that a satisfactory metapsychological systemisation on the same is missing, without, at the same time, going to the extremes of Schafer's reasonings (1973) when he went so far as to make a hypothesis about a resistance to the analysis of resistances.
We mostly read that resistance indicates opposition by the patient to the progress of treatment. On the other hand, as I pointed out and discussed elsewhere (1976), it is useful to take into consideration