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In the previous Part we have found that regression, as observed in the analytic situation, may have at least two aims: gratification of an instinct or drive and recognition by an object; in other words, it is both an intrapsychic and an interpersonal phenomenon. We also found strong indications that for the analytic therapy of regressed states its interpersonal aspects were more important.
The problem at which we have arrived here may be termed ‘the healing power of relationship’. Although, as a rule, it is not stated quite so explicitly, we are compelled to recognize that the two most important factors in psychoanalytic therapy are interpretations and object relationship. It should be borne in mind, however, that with the latter we are on comparatively unsafe grounds because psychoanalytic theory knows much less about it.
We have some systematic knowledge about the instincts or drives and their vicissitudes, about the structure of the mind and the various defensive mechanisms working in it, and also about the role of conflict in psychopathology. It was on these three pillars – the theory of the instincts, of the structure of the mind, and of the pathogenic effects of conflicts – that Freud based his technical recommendations. The aim of his technique was to make the unconscious conscious – or in a later version: where id was, ego shall be – and the tool for achieving this aim was almost exclusively interpretation. Although as early as 1912 and 1915 in his two papers on Transference, he stated in so many words that transference, that is an object relationship, may have considerable healing powers, he evidently mistrusted them, and never considered them worthy of a proper study. In consequence, interpretation became accepted as far the most important technical measure.
As I tried to show in Part IV, putting all the emphasis on the