2.1 Resistance: Working Definition

I have selected the subject of resistance as the first technical chapter of this book because it was Freud's discovery of the importance of analyzing resistances that ushered in the beginning of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic technique (Breuer and Freud, 1893-95, pp. 268-270; Freud, 1914c, p. 147; Jones, 1953, p. 284). The handling of resistances has remained one of the two cornerstones of psychoanalytic technique.

Psychoanalysis can be differentiated from all other forms of psychotherapy in the way in which it deals with resistances. Some methods of treatment aim at strengthening the resistances; they are designated as the “covering-up” or “supportive” therapies (Knight, 1952). Other varieties of psychotherapy may attempt to overcome resistances, or evade resistances in different ways; for example, by suggestion or exhortation, or by exploiting the transference relationship, or by using drugs. It is only in psychoanalytic therapy that we attempt to overcome resistances by analyzing them, by uncovering and interpreting their causes, purposes, modes, and histories.

Resistance means opposition. All those forces within the patient which oppose the procedures and processes of analysis, i.e., which hinder the patient's free association, which interfere with the

patient's attempts to remember and to gain and assimilate insight, which operate against the patient's reasonable ego and his wish to change; all of these forces are to be considered resistance (Freud, 1900, p. 517). Resistance may be conscious, preconscious, or unconscious, and may be expressed by means of emotions, attitudes, ideas, impulses, thoughts, fantasies, or actions. Resistance is in essence a counterforce in the patient, operating against the progress of the analysis, the analyst, and the analytic procedures and processes. Freud had already recognized the importance of resistance in 1912 when he stated: “The resistance accompanies the treatment step by step. Every single association, every act of the