2.3 Resistance: Historical Survey

Before going on to a discussion of the theory of resistance, I shall briefly outline the historical development of the psychoanalytic point of view on this subject. Rather than attempt a systematic digest of each paper mentioned, these papers being readily available to the reader, I shall limit myself to those aspects of the contribution which indicate a significant change.

The Studies on Hysteria (1893-95) which Freud wrote with Breuer constitute a remarkable document, because one can observe how Freud came upon such monumental discoveries as resistance and transference. It was a characteristic of Freud's genius that when he met an obstacle in his path, he was not content to evade it or simply overcome it, he had the happy facility of turning it to advantage. This is particularly true of his work with resistance and transference. In describing the case of Elisabeth von R., whom Freud treated in 1892, he mentioned the term resistance for the first time and made some preliminary formulations. He believed the patient “fended off” some incompatible ideas, and that the strength of the resistance corresponded to the amount of energy with which the ideas had been forced out of her associations. In this chapter, he hypothesized that the idea was cut off from the rest of her ideational life and from her free associations, like a foreign body (p. 157). Freud also introduced the terms defense, motive for defense, and mechanisms of defense in his discussion of the problem (p. 166).

In the chapter on the “Psychotherapy of Hysteria” in that same volume, Freud asserted that the patient's inability to be hypnotized really meant the unwillingness to be hypnotized (p. 268). One had to overcome in a patient a psychical force that was opposed to pathogenic ideas becoming conscious. This force must have played a part in creating the hysterical symptom. Because the ideas were painful, the patient's ego evoked for defense a repelling force that drove the pathogenic idea out of consciousnes