The Truth About Freud's Technique

The Encounter With the Real

Michael Guy Thompson

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 1994
• ISBN:
  9780814783337
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychoanalysis
• Index: Psychology

In this unusual and much-needed reappraisal of Freud's clinical technique, M. Guy Thompson challenges the conventional notion that psychoanalysis promotes relief from suffering and replaces it with a more radical assertion, that psychoanalysis seeks to mend our relationship with the real that has been fractured by our avoidance of the same. Thompson suggests that, while avoiding reality may help to relieve our experience of suffering, this short-term solution inevitably leads to a split in our existence.

M. Guy Thompson forcefully disagrees with the recent trend that dismisses Freud as an historical figure who is out of step with the times. He argues, instead, for a return to the forgotten Freud, a man inherently philosophical and rooted in a Greek preoccupation with the nature of truth, ethics, the purpose of life and our relationship with reality. Thompson's argument is situated in a stunning re-reading of Freud's technical papers, including a new evaluation of his analyses of Dora and the Rat Man in the context of Heidegger's understanding of truth.

In this remarkable examination of Freud's technical recommendations, M. Guy Thompson explains how psychoanalysis was originally designed to re-acquaint us with realities we had abandoned by encountering them in the contest of the analytic experience. This provocative examination of Freud's conception of psychoanalysis reveals a more personal Freud than we had previously supposed, one that is more humanistic and real.

Index

Abstinence, 172–73

Adler, Alfred, 55, 137

“Adolescence and the Doldrums” (Winnicott), 124

Affective ideas, 11

Agape, 262, 187–88n. See also Love

Aletheia, 62. See also Truth

Altered ego, 250–51, 255–56

Ambivalence: of ego, 256–57

guilt vs., 228

negative transference epitomized by, 183–84

of obsessional compulsions, 219–20

“Analysis Terminable and Interminable” (Freud), 162, 203, 245, 247, 266, 268

Analysts: advised to withhold sympathy, 150–51

aggression toward, 183–84

concern with remembering, 192–204

confidentiality between patient and, 213

continuing influence of, 273–74

countertransference of, xxii, 43–44, 122–23

criticism of Freud’s behavior as, 230–40

Freud’s recommendations to, 64, 135, 145–54, 242, 271–72

patient’s transference-love for, 37–40, 176–80

remaining alert to patients, 64

resistance to, 42–43, 181–82

technique and personality of, 136–39, 207–8

use of abstinence by, 173. See also Neutrality; Psychoanalysis

Analytic attitude, 67, 254

Analytic patients. See Patients

Analytic schools, xxii

Analyzability, 156–57, 243–44

Anna O., 168

Anxiety: death drive and, 265–66

ego as reservoir of, 26

Freud’s beliefs regarding, 14–18

neurotic vs. realistic, 15

in terms of structural model, 229

Anzieu, Didier, xix

Applebaum, A., 239

Aristotle: correspondence theory of, 59

ethical studies of, 3

influence on Freud, 4, 266–67

scientific approach challenged, 70–72

Arlow, J., 253

Bacon, Francis, 74

Bad faith, 67

Behavior: concerned with consequence of, 267

obsessions and compulsive, 223

self-destructive, 260–61, 270

as type of remembering, 193

Behaviorism school, 2

Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) (Heidegger), 52, 57

Beliefs, 76

Berkeley, George, 3

Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud), 22, 133, 265–66

Bilmes, Murray, xxv

Binswanger, Ludwig, 55

Blanton, S., 237

Bleuler, Eugen, 182

Borderline conditions, 157–58, 206, 245

Borne, Ludwig, 168

Boss, Medard, 237

Brentano, Franz, 51–52, 266

Breuer, Josef, 168

Brunswick, Ruth Mack, 248

“Case of Su...