Analytic Desire

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DOI: 10.1177/00030651030510012001

2003 51: 71J Am Psychoanal AssocMitchell WilsonThe Analyst's Desire and the Problem of Narcissistic Resistances

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Mitchell Wilson 51/1

THE ANALYSTS DESIRE AND

THE PROBLEM OF NARCISSISTIC

RESISTANCES

The ways in which the analysts desire for particular experienceswith patients is inevitable and often leads to narcissistically basedresistances are considered. Five propositions are examined: (1) that

the analyst cannot help but have desires and want them recognized bythe analysand; (2) that these desires frequently underwrite the analyststheoretical beliefs and technical interventions; (3) that narcissistic desiresand their influence are ubiquitous among practicing analysts; (4) that

the patient is often on the lookout for the analysts various agendas; and

(5) that the patient often hopes the analyst will put his or her desireaside and listen so the patient can further his or her own interests. Lacansconcept of the dual relation is central to this discussion. The neo-Kleinianposition on narcissistic resistances is explored, as is the idea of theanalytic third as a potential solution to the problem they pose. Anextended case description illustrates the main points.

[S]ometimes it is only the mask of distance, of vanishing,

that lets you speak, that gives you the freedom to say what

you mean without immediately having to stake your lifeon every word. So much of the basement tapes are the

purest of free speech: simple free speech, ordinary free

speech, nonsensical free speech, not heroic free speech.

GREIL MARCUS

Invisible Republic: Bob Dylans Basement Tapes

Faculty, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute; Assistant Clinical Professorof Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco.The author gratefully acknowledges helpful comments and suggestions from

the following colleagues: Jonathan Dunn, Sam Gerson, Lee Grossman, CharlesFisher, Stephen Purcell, Owen Renik, Mark Scott, Thomas Svolos, and the JAPAeditorial readers.

Submitted for publication April 12, 2001.

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Though the meanings of [my patients] experience can be

debated according to our theoretical preferences, andthough there is a novel element in her recent contacts

with me, I argue that finally it is her meaning that she

unfolds within this setting . . . a new self-redefinition as

subject, a search wherein she attempts to hold together

more of the many strands of her existence.

LEWIS KIRSHNER(1999)

Ten years ago (1993), at the American Psychoanalytic Associa-tions annual meeting in San Francisco, Lawrence Friedman

stated the following: Professional wishes are no less wishes. Analysis

is a real world activity. Analysts want to analyze. They like to watch

patients in analysis. They want patients to accomplish analytic goals

(p. 19). Friedman, as the discussant to a panel presenting papers

on Resistance: A Reevaluation, distilled the analysts activity to its

essence: the analyst wants things from the analysis, from the analysand,

and from being an analyst; the practicing analyst is a desiring being

every step of the way.

The four panel participants described intimate engagements with

their analysandsengagements that involved struggle, negotiation,

subtle coercion and conflict, and resolution. One analyst desired that

patients work effectively on their problems. Another wanted an

experience in which the analysand felt present-tense to him; he

wished for the patient to come alive in his experience of himself and

his analyst. A third presenter was concerned with the patients fantasy

of the analysts authority: this analyst believed that the proper focus of

analytic investigation was the patients assumption that a hierarchy

existed between them. The fourth analyst (the one Friedman applauded

most generously) was a candidate in search of a control case, and she

grappled straightforwardly with her desire for the new analytic patient

she needed. Friedman pointed out that she was up front with her struggle

to accommodate her wish to have a patient in analysis with the reluc-

tance of her current prospect. The other analysts, to Friedmans ear, were

less aware of what they wanted from their patients. Resistance,Friedman asserted, was as much about the analyst as the analysand.

Friedman saw that each of the first three presenters assumed that

his desire for a particular analytic engagement and process was inher-

ent in psychoanalysis itself, in the technical application of theoretical

M i t c h e l l W i l s o n

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principles, and in the goals of analysis (however def ined). The analysts

deeply held and deeply personal desires for particular experienceswith their patientsworking on problems, coming alive in the analytic

relationship, realizing the inhibiting nature of idealizationbecame

clothed in essentialist notions of the psychoanalytic process. Human

desire, Friedman tells us, is never absent from human endeavor. There

is no such thing as natural work, devoid of human action and inten-

tion. As Friedman said in his summary of the analytic engagements

the panelists described: Theres a demand for work here. . . . a bending

of purpose, a conf lict of wills, a verdict of satisfactoriness. The analystis not just a facilitator: he is a taskmaster and judge (p.13). Friedman,

of course is making a larger point: the analysts desire for particular

kinds of experience with the analysand is constitutive of the clinical

phenomenon we call resistance.

In this paper I explore different yet related aspects of the analysts

desire,1 specifically as it connects to the ubiquitous phenomenon of

narcissistic resistances. I will describe what I consider to be an important,

and arguably neglected, aspectof the analytic encounter. By no means

am I pretending to paint a comprehensive picture of the psycho-

analytic process. Running throughout this essay is my assertion of the

narcissistic basis of the analysts desire, a desire to which the analysand

is more or less sensitive. I discuss how the analyst cannot help but wish

for certain kinds of experiences in the analytic process. And I will explore

some of the ways in which the analysts wish for particular experiences

can lead to iatrogenic resistances that have a narcissistic basis.

I mean to add another point of view, overlapping to be sure, to

the literature on the analysts subjectivity. By reframing the idea of

the analysts subjectivity in terms of the analysts desire, I wish to

emphasize that the analyst does not simply have his or her own point

THE ANALYST'S DESIRE

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1My use of the term analysts desire, though inspired by Lacans (1981) theo-rization of the desire of the analyst (p. 231), is both similar to and different fromit. In this paper I elaborate a picture of the analystssubjectivizeddesire and the waysin which this desire participates, for good and bad, in the analytic process. For Lacan,the desire of the analyst is desubjectivized and part of the structure of a properlyconducted analysis. Lacan equates the desire of the analyst with the object a, or

cause of [the analysands] desire (pp. 273274). In this ideal analytic structure, theanalysts desire is enigmatic and, so being, allows the analysand to articulate graduallyhis own desires and position as subject. While overly rigid and idealized, Lacansdesire of the analyst does suggest that there are analytically helpful desires andanalytically unhelpful ones (a point I take up later in the paper). My overall emphasishere is how the analyst as desiring subjectgets in the way of the analysands ongoingelaboration of his desire.



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of view (that is, his or her subjectivity) forever at play in the f low

of clinical work; the analyst always wants something. I also intendthis paper to offer a rebalancing of our consideration of the problem

of narcissistic resistances in light of the significant and far reaching

contributions of the neo-Kleinian school. These contributions, by Joseph

(1989), Feldman, Spillius, Steiner, and Britton (in Schafer 1997), and

Maldonado (1999), among others, have elaborated the nuances and

subtleties of transference/countertransference configurations as expres-

sions of the analysands unconscious fantasy and of a demand for the

analyst to enact a certain role within that fantasy. Yet, as I hope todemonstrate, these writers insufficiently emphasize the role of the

analysts desire as a constitutive factor in these configurations. I discuss

in some detail Lacans concept of the dual relation and use it to show

that the nature of the role of the two participants in transference/counter-

transference enactments is at times impossible to read and easy for

the analyst to misrecognize.2 The analyst is not, as usually described,

simply responding to the role the patient has unconsciously invited

him to play (Sandler 1976). The analyst puts pressure on the patient

to play certain roles as well. It is this pressureat least in some of

its more blatant formsthat Lacans concept of dual or Imaginary

relations lays bare.

THE PARTICULARITY OF THE ANALYTIC ENDEAVOR

Contemporary psychoanalysts encounter certain questions again and

again that ultimately weeach of usmust answer for ourselves. Here

are some examples: Should the analyst try to be helpful, and what

constitutes help? Should we help patients focus on their problems and

goals and allow the process to venture wherever it does in the service

of those ends? Should we focus on the here and now of the transference

to the relative exclusion of the past or the patients outside life? Is the

purpose of analysis to help analysands understand how their minds

work or how to fix their problems? How much self-disclosure, and

what kind, if any, is helpful? Are we there to help patients discover

something old and repetitive that plagues them or to create somethingnew through the therapeutic relationship? Is the analysts countertrans-


74

2See Lacan (1977b; 1988, pp. 241258; 1992, pp. 292301; 1993, pp. 9297and 235244), and Muller (1995) for descriptions and elaboration of dual orImaginary relations.



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ference experience ever unencumbered, or is it always a distortion of

the patient based on the analysts desires and conflicts? All these ques-tionsand many othersrelate to the impact of the analysts desire in

the analytic setting.

Obviously, I have falsely polarized pairs of questions that often rest

most meaningfully in a dialectical relation with each other. Quickly

we see that the analytic enterprise is radically situation-specific. These

questions can only be answered in the context of an individual case or,

more correctly, a specif ic analytic couple. If each party in the analytic

situation is irreducibly subjective (Renik 1993a), then certainly thereis something irreducibly subjective about any particular analytic pair

(Jones 2000). Our desire for theoretical principles that are coherent and

generalizable is inevitably frustrated by the odd peculiarities and

mysteries of any particular human encounter. Along the nomothetic

idiographic continuumthat is, the axis on which a science of general

laws meets a series of individual, signature experiencespsycho-

analysis as a practical endeavor is almost entirely idiographic. Given

the particularity of the analytic enterprise, the analysts wishes con-

tinually underwrite his conscious theoretical commitments and tech-

nical choices.

Against this theoretically pluralistic, yet clinically particularistic

backdrop, one can catch glimpses of the analysts desire at work. By

desire I refer to our unconscious and relatively totalizing way of

structuring reality based on unconscious fantasies and identifica-

tions. Desire is what drives our being intentional and involves our

irreducible interest in preserving our view of our place in the world.

By wish I mean specific and identifiable manifestations of this

more all-encompassing, and therefore all-the-more-hidden, desire.

Wishes can be more or less fulfilled and more or less conscious;

desire cannot be fulfilled and is unconscious. When I say the analysts

desire can be seen or glimpsed against the pluralistic backdrop of

our clinical theories, I mean simply that each of us chooses our pro-

fession, our theoretical persuasions, and the kinds of experiences

we want to have with our patients for our own particular reasons. The

analysts specific wishes may be facilitative or harmful to a specificongoing analytic process; this issue I will take up later in the paper.

Whether harmful or helpful, our desires are engaged every moment

we do analytic work.

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76

THE NARCISSISTIC BASIS OF

THE ANALYSTS DESIRE

One might argue that the analysts wishes for certain experiences

represent unresolved neurotic conflict. My claim is that these wishes

are inevitable. Working has no basis unless one wants to get something

from that work. And yet, more essential than the gratifications we might

hope for in doing analytic work is the wishfulness inherent in our being

thinking and feeling persons. The irreducibility of the analysts desire

starts here. Opatow (1997) writes compellingly about the essentialnature of the psychoanalytic view of the human subject (or the mind).3

The mind, never complete unto itself, is inherently wishful and seeks its

own satisfaction. Opatow investigates this idea through Freuds concept

of hallucinatory wish fulfillment. For Opatow, the metaphor of halluci-

natory wish fulf illment is foundational for psychoanalytic theory;

it is psychoanalysiss original scene. It is also the original scene of

the mind as conceptualized psychoanalytically; that is, hallucinating a

gratifying image is the genesis of the desiring subject, the subjects

origin as subject. This scene, to summarize Freud, unfolds in the fol-

lowing way: in the absence of nourishment, the hungry infant attempts

to satisfy itself (or affirm itself) with an image (a memory) of feeding

on the breast. Faced with pain induced by absence, the infant attempts

to refind psychically the object of satisfaction. Opatow writes: An

unconscious wish strives to actualize a sceneto revive it as a con-

scious event (p. 873).

Opatows point is farther reaching because he argues that the

psychoanalytic postulate that satisfaction can be hallucinated is not

limited to a theory of unconscious fantasy. A hallucinated satisfaction

is the foundation of thinking itself. Thus Opatow writes: What is trans-

ferred from unconscious to conscious in the movement up the ordered

hierarchy of mind is aff irmation per se (p. 873). In other words, there

is an inherently self-validating aspect to thinking and perceiving. There

is no such thing as neutral thinking; thinking is suffused with a

distinctly narcissistic, self-aggrandizing desire. I want to emphasize

that I do not mean to imply something pathological in using the term

3Though Opatows contributions (see also 1989) are only the latest in a long lineof theoretical statements regarding the psychoanalytic conception of mind, in the

paper discussed here Opatow offers a stunning synthesis of these statements intoa compelling theoretical whole.



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narcissistic. Thinking is a self-preservative function, and in that very

important sense is always already self-serving.If thinking is always already self-serving, then we necessarily

tend to see ourselves, or ref ind ourselves in what we see around

us. Pontalis (1981), in a trenchant discussion of the development of

the concept of the self, offers a similar conclusion: Narcissism is

not a phase, nor a specific mode of cathexis, it is a position, an in-

surmountable and permanent component of the human being. Even

the most intellectual functions (thinking), the most objective ones (per-

ception of reality), and the forms of behavior which come closest toinstinct (eating) are marked by it (p. 136). In addition to seeing our-

selves in the physical and interpersonal surround of our lives, we also

have a natural tendency to want others to recognize our perspectives,

ideas, and feelings. Scholars of diverse intellectual backgrounds have

reached a similar conclusion about our desire as human beings to have

our desires recognized by others (Kojeve 1947; Lacan 1977a; Fukuyama

1992). By self-aggrandizing desire, then, I do not mean simply a self-

centered and solipsistic desire; I have in mind also ones desire for the

others recognition and love. J.H. Smith (1991) puts it well: Anything

anyone does, thinks, or feels is a manifestation of concern for ones

being and being-with. Desire at one moment, anxiety at another, arise

from a want of being and a want of the other (p. 92).

Despite the significance of the analysts desire as a constitutive

element in the analysts functioning, the role of narcissism in psycho-

analytic theorizing has had a troubled fate. The point of view I have

articulated so far is but one side of a tense argument that psycho-

analysis has had with itself over the course of its history. Psychoanalysts

have at times struggled with recognizing the deeper, more difficult

desires that motivate our analytic activity, although it should not

surprise us to know that we also desire not to know certain things about

ourselves. This struggle can be seen from the perspective of the history

of the psychoanalytic theory of the ego and the self, which ref lects

a tension between our living more fully with our being desiring subjects

and our wishes for rationality, order, and objectivity. It is this open-

ing up of our selfhood that we are after, to which this paper contributes.I would like to summarize briefly important aspects of this debate

to lend context and clarity to my argument.

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THE EGO AND THE SELF

Many have remarked (see Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973, pp. 130143,

for a detailed discussion) on the conceptual confusion of Freuds idea

of the ego. The details of this confusion go beyond the scope of this

paper. For the present purposes, I think it is fair to say that for Freud

the ego stood for the I (or the self) as well as for a set of cognitive

and regulatory functions that comprised a proto-neurological executive

agency. In Freuds topographic model, the ego and self were essentially

synonymous. As Freuds structural model gained in prominence, thenarcissistic basis of the ego was deemphasized. American ego psy-

chologists (Hartmann, for one) tended to highlight the egos rational

capacities; in so doing, they insisted on a distinction between the ego

and the self.4 With this theoretical separation of the ego from the self,

the ego was more or less cleansed of narcissistic needs and influences.

The theoretical status of the ego changed: it was now conceptualized as

a set of functions that were relatively autonomous from the pressures

of the drives (sex and aggression).

Within American psychoanalysis, there has been a sea change from

a preoccupation with the ego to the consideration of the self. One

way to read the recent North American psychoanalytic literature on the

analysts subjectivity in all its forms (see Bader 1993, 1995; Renik

1993a and 1993b; and Grossman 1996, 19995) is as an insistent argu-

ment against the ego psychological claim that there is thinking devoid

of narcissistic investment (that is, thinking devoid of a self); and an

argument against the technical precepts such a theory, in its strictest

form, impliesprecepts like neutrality, abstinence, evenly hovering

attention, and rational or logical interpretations aimed at the egos

self-observing capacities. In this form of Freudianism, the ego never

gains independence from the self. The ego and self form an indelible

narcissistic structure. The analysts activityunderwritten by specific


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4Hartmann (1950) writes: It therefore will be clarifying if we define narcissismas the libidinal cathexis not of the ego but of the self (p. 85).

5Bader describes cases that demonstrate his claim that the analyst makes

choices to act certain ways with patients that are both strategic and authentic. Further,Bader demonstrates that the analyst, whether he or she knows it or not, is continuallymaking choices. Renik emphasizes that the analysts interventions are often unwit-ting; if retrospectively examined, they can propel treatments forward. Grossmanemphasizes the analysts necessarily limited ways of listening, his or her inherentuncertainty in the clinical situation, and the ways in which that uncertainty ishandled clinically.



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wishesis imbued with, as J. H. Smith (1991) puts it, a concern for

ones being (p.92).6

H. F. Smith (1999) tackles head-on the complexities of what might

be called clinical epistemology (and does them intellectual justice),

and stresses that the analysts actions are an admixture of forces, a

compromise between sexual and aggressive urges. While thoughtful

and wise, Smiths account does not capture adequately the narcis-

sistic basis that underlies all perception, cognition, and action. Grossman

(1999) describes well what I have in mind. In his paper, What the

Analyst Does Not Hear, he writes: But I suspect that both our way oflistening and our preference for theories are primarily consequences

of our way of seeing ourselves (p. 95). Cooper (1996) offers a similar

observation: . . . I would suggest that the analysts choices of how to

formulate and conceptualize and the technique that follows from these

choices are themselves the most blatant expression of the analysts sub-

jectivity (p. 265). What may seem to be the practice of a rational-tech-

nical method is in fact suffused with desire, manifested by the analysts

wishes for particular experiences with their patients.

THE ANALYSTS DESIRE

FOR PARTICULAR EXPERIENCES

How does this view of the ubiquity of narcissistic forces in the mind

contribute to the kinds of experiences analysts want that lie beneath

the surface of conscious intent? I start, again, with Opatows treat-

ment of Freuds idea of refinding the lost object. I believe the analyst

desires to reexperience a particular kind of object relationship with

analysands. This refinding of the object relationship can, and does,

take diverse and complex forms. The analyst may attempt to repeat

with patients moments of relating that remind him or her of pleasurable

past relationships.

Alternatively, the analyst may wish to redress with patients a par-

ticularly painful past object relationship or persistent internal conflict

(Renik 1993b; Jacobs 1991; McLaughlin 1991). For example, an analyst

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6As commonplace examples: the analyst who eschews any measure of thera-peutic zeal (and, therefore, assumes a neutral position towards his analysand)is valuing that particular stance. The analyst who (1) presumes to be in a posi-tion of not knowing, (2) cherishes surprise, and (3) embraces the ubiquity ofcountertransference enactment is similarly involved and concerned with inhabitingthat particular stance with patients.



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with an emotionally distant and unavailable parent may believe him

or herself to have been the agent of that parents behavior and may worry,accordingly, about his or her own omnipotence and destructiveness; that

analyst may hope to redress these worries by having emotionally close

and intimate relationships with patients. Sharpe (1950) made a related

point long ago. There she writes of the analyst who suffers from exces-

sive therapeutic zeala persistent desire to be helpful and altruisticin

order to manage his unconscious sadism. Such an analyst, uncomfortable

with patients who keep their distance, may too quickly and urgently

interpret their defensive posture and simply exacerbate problematicaspects of the transference/countertransference engagement. Gabbard

(2000) captures my point in his discussion of the ungrateful patient.

He writes: . . . I am suggesting that ungrateful patients, in particular,

are likely to make us aware of our unconscious background wish to

enact a gratifying object relationship that motivates us to return to the

consulting room day after day (p. 699).

Another important factor in the analysts desire for particular

experiences is the analysts theory of mind and clinical process. Several

analytic thinkers have noted the importance to the analyst of psycho-

analytic theory as a loved objectthat is, a refinding of a love that

has been lost but never given up completely, now reestablished in the

analysts identification with a theoretical model (Almond 1995; Caper

1997; Purcell 2001). The analysts relationship to theory has many

important consequences for his or her functioning, some of which are

clearly necessary for good analytic work to proceed. The analysts

attachment to a theoretical perspective may be the wellspring of one of

the gratif ications of doing analysis: the analyst may feel satisfied, good,

or whole if he or she is acting in accordance with a particular theory

of mind or therapeutic process. The analyst may use theory as a way to

maintain a feeling of independence from difficult internal experiences,

including feelings that the patient is trying to take over the analysts

thinking and functioning. In other cases, the analyst may identify less

with a theory and more with a former analyst or supervisor, and may

wish to recreate certain loving or hating, soothing or exciting inter-

actions and feelings he or she experienced as a patient or supervisee(Grusky 2000).

The motivation to refind the lost object only partly answers the

question of the analysts desire. The analysts assessment of a particular

patients troubles, their probable causes, and the ways in which they


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manifest themselves in the day-to-day work of analysis are also related

intimately to the analysts wishes and satisfactions. The issue is notsimply what kinds of experiences the analyst seeks to re-create or

redress by doing analytic work. The issue is how these desired experi-

ences interact with the analysts conception of the patients problems,

as well as with the patients own goals and desires for treatment. As

I noted earlier, the analytic couples idiosyncratically evolving inter-

action of desires, subtly negotiated over time, determines the tone

and quality of clinical process and outcome.7

DUAL RELATIONS: THE ANALYSTS

DESIRE AND RESISTANCE

The analyst is always, in part, looking for the lost objects, trying to

refind him- or herself in the patient and to see him- or herself as an

analyst in day-to-day clinical work. The crucial question is how these

desires facilitate or hinder a successful analytic process. For resistance

does not reside in the patient. Resistance is fundamentally an inter-

subjective phenomenon. Boesky (1990) asserts that analyst and

analysand co-create resistant moments in the analysis. Boesky writes:

I am convinced that the transference as resistance in any specific

case is unique and would never, and could never, have developed in the

identical manner, form, or sequence with any other analyst.In fact, the

manifest form of a resistance is even sometimes unconsciously nego-

tiated by both patient and analyst (p. 572). Boesky continues later in

his discussion: If there can be no analysis without resistance by the

patient, then it is equally true that there can be no treatment conducted

by any analyst without counterresistance or countertransference (p.573).

Boeskys contribution suggests that there are useful resistances. If the

resistant interaction becomes an object for mutual consideration,

analyst and patient can understand the significance of this interaction

in the service of the patients growing understanding of his or her subject

position and the way he or she relates to his or her important objects.

Though it is true that the analysts desire cuts both ways and can

facilitate as well as hinder the analytic process, I want to focus in thispart of the paper on investigating how the analysts desire contributes

81

7See Goldberg (1987), Pizer (1992), and Aron (1996) for trenchant discussionsof how analyst and patient grapple with their conflicting interests over the course of

psychoanalytic treatment.



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to resistant moments that more seriously threaten that process. Analysts

are tempted to see themselves in the analysand and overvalue theirideas about the patient. The analyst also wishes to have the patient

recognize those ideas in some manner. The situation is complicated

because the analysand often canvasses the analyst for signs of the ana-

lysts desire, or defends against noticing those signs.8 Among the

analysands fundamental questions are: what makes my analyst tick?

what does my analyst want from me? what does my analyst know? All

analysts, of course, inevitably reveal aspects of themselves that provide

the analysand with partial answers to those questions.Complications notwithstanding, the analysts desireas it is

expressed through specific wishes and demandsengenders resistance

when the patient f eels forced to recognize it. Especially during

moments of uncertainty or uncomfortable silence or interaction (in

which the analyst feels in his bones caught in an enactment with a

patient), the analyst is tempted to fall back for defensive purposes on

certain cherished identifications with a theory, a supervisor, a colleague,

or his or her analyst. Precisely when we feel lost we want to re-

f ind ourselves. My argument is that at these moments of ref inding

ourselves we often stop listening to the patient, and wish the patient

would stop expressing the part of him- or herself we are having diffi-

culty tolerating (Caper 2001). These resistant moments result from

what Ogden (1988), following Lacan, calls misrecognition. The ana-

lyst, according to Ogden, fears uncertainty and not knowing. The analyst

stops listening and fills the gap of uncertainty with his own thoughts,

guesses, or surmises. 9As Grossman (1999) writes, . . . the villain in

the piece is the analysts certaintya character trait, not a technical

device (p. 95). Lacan (1993) offers a similarly skeptical critique of

the analysts capacity to understand: The major progress in psychiatry

since the introduction of psychoanalysis has consisted . . . in restoring


82

8Steiner (1993), for example, writes: The patient is always listening for infor-mation about the analysts state of mind, and whatever form of interpretation the ana-lyst uses, verbal and nonverbal clues give the patient information about him (p. 390).

9Lacan (1993) called this way of thinking the relation of understanding (p. 6).The analyst looks for patterns or relations among elements of the patients dis-

course. In order for the analyst to make sense of the clinical material, he must assumea self-evident starting point and then look for a change from that point. Lacansuggests that the starting point usually remains an unexamined assumption. Rabin(1998, 1999), an economist, amasses a substantial amount of data regarding how

people use judgment under uncertainty that support Lacans analysis that inmoments of uncertainty we tend to look for the familiar, to find what were lookingfor. In cognitive psychology this is known as confirmatory bias.



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meaning to the chain of phenomena [produced by the analysand]. This

is not false in itself. But what is false is to imagine that the sense inquestion is what we understand (p. 6).

Some readers may feel that this clinical dynamic of the analysts

imposition of his or her desire (and the effects of this imposition) is a

reassuringly local clinical problem. My sense is, on the contrary, that

this dynamic runs farther and deeper than is typically recognized, and

manifests itself in countless subtle clinical interactions. The problem

of the analysts desire and its effects is often tucked neatly under

the issue of compliance.10

Different patients handle the dilemma ofthe analysts desire in different ways. Some comply by being seemingly

agreeable (Joseph 2000); some rebel in subtle or not so subtle ways. As

I have argued, the analysts desire thoroughly underwrites the analysts

technique; therefore, any analytic intervention houses within it aspects

of the analysts desirein the form of specific wishesfor some kind

of response and recognition.

Under the clinical circumstances in which analysts desire too

strongly, or too unconsciously, to have specific kinds of experiences

with their patients, iatrogenic resistances can result. The patient is

put in the alienated position of needing to deal with the analysts

desire. Though the analysts commenting on the patients response to

an intervention may further the analytic dialogue, often interpreting

the interaction by calling the analysands attention to it only feeds its

reinforcement. In such difficult clinical circumstances, which are

more common than is usually acknowledged, there can be no clear way

out. A crucially important aspect of these narcissistically based resis-

tances is that, from a logical point of view, the dynamics asserted

to be going on in the patient can just as easily be asserted to be

going on in the analyst. Lacan called this way of interacting a dual

relation.11 Dual relations are inherently reversible. Both analyst

and patient want the other to recognize their desire. When caught

in a dual relationship, it is often diff icult to figure out what is what;

confusion results.

83

10

See the issue ofPsychoanalytic Inquiry, 1999, Vol. 19: No. 1, for considera-tions of this topic. Levines contribution (pp. 4060) in that volume comes closest tothe point of view articulated here. Of American psychoanalytic writers, Weiss et al.(1986, 1993) has grappled most seriously with the problem of compliance in the

psychoanalytic process.11In this case dual can also be read as duel since the images of confrontation,

standoff, and reversibility are essential aspects of Imaginary or dual relations.



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Joseph (1971) describes an interaction with her patient, Mr. B, that

illustrates the difficulties posed by the analysts desire for specificclinical experiences and the reversible nature of dual relations. Josephs

focus on the patients emotional contact, or lack thereof, with the

analyst is central to her clinical point of view. Her ideas on transfer-

ence, specifically on the totality of transference manifestations in the

clinical moment, have influenced more than one generation of analysts.

Everything the patient says or does has immediate transference mean-

ing. In my estimation, the role of the analysts desire has no indepen-

dent theoretical standing in Josephs conceptualization of the analyticencounter.

Josephs focus on emotional contact and the totality of the trans-

ference leads her to consider patients reactions to weekends and holi-

daysperiods of time away from the analystas important topics for

analytic consideration. In the complex case of Mr. B, Joseph describes

a man with a narcissistic character structure and baroque sexual prac-

tices. While I assume that, as with all published clinical material, the

analysts understanding of the case has a privileged status, I believe that

the clinical information Joseph provides us offers itself to an alterna-

tive reading. Mr. B, well into his analysis, gets married over a summer

holiday. Upon his return, a number of complicated interactions ensue

between him and his analyst, including, among other things, an elabo-

rate dream. I want to focus on one specific aspect of Josephs dis-

cussion. Mr. B tells his analyst that he was frightened to let her know

about his recent marriage. He was worried that the analyst, as Joseph

writes, would feel angry and left out, as if he ought not to have put the

marriage before the analysis; almost as if he ought to have married

the analyst. It becomes clear, Joseph continues, how much he has

projected his own left-out infantile feelings about the holidays onto

me, and feels me to be watching, left out and demanding (p. 445).

Joseph does not make clear precisely what she said to Mr. B, but she

strongly suggests that she interpreted to him his projection of his feel-

ing of dependency onto her.

Yet this is where things get tricky and where, I would argue, con-

fusion can reign in the clinical moment. This is because Joseph wantsclearly for Mr. B to admit his having felt left out over the holiday break.

He doesnt acknowledge this, and therefore, in a very real sense, he

is not acting in the way she wants him to act. More precisely, Mr. B is

not thinking the way his analyst would wish him to think, in that he


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is not using the analysts interpretations to further his self-understand-

ing. Mr. B, in other words, is not recognizing his analysts desire. Onecannot help but wonder whether the patient has accurately concluded

that the analyst feels the patientshould have missed her, and, therefore,

has understandable concern about thwarting the analysts wish that he

acknowledge feeling left out and watching. In terms of the logic of

the interaction, the assertion that the patient misses the analyst and uses

omnipotent defenses to ward off his feeling of dependency could be

made also about the analyst: the analyst is engaging in omnipotent

thinking because she knows what is going on with her patient.Further, she wants the patient to relate to her in a very particular way

that he is not doing, and in that sense she feels left out, yet she projects

this feeling into him. All the assertions the analyst makes about the

patient could be made about the analyst. The issue is not whether this

reading is correct. The issue is that in a dual relation there is always an

alternative, symmetrical reading and that it is arguably impossible to

know which of the two readings is correct.12

I would like to compare Josephs approach to that reported by

Gabbard (2000). Gabbards contribution is an example of cases reported

with increasing frequency in our literature (see below) that describe

the analysts contribution to a narcissistically based resistance. He also

offers a partial solution to this clinical problem. Gabbard, in the case of

Mr. F, wants Mr. Fs recognition for his (Gabbards) dutiful and stead-

fast service to him (p. 698). Gabbards desire, grasped by his perspi-

cacious patient, contributes to a resistance. Gabbard writes about his

desire in this way: [T]he childs desire for a long-denied gratitude may

in adulthood take the form of a yearning to be appreciated by ones

patients, even to the point of encouraging expressions of gratitude that

are at odds with the patients best interests. In such a situation, the

analysts need for gratitude may become apparent to the patient, who

then feels that the analytic setting is being subverted to address the

analysts needs (p. 700).

85

12The difficulty in figuring out what is causing what in a dual relation is simi-lar to the epidemiological axiom correlation is not causation. Cause and validity

always require a third term to structure the correlation and make it meaningful. Asimilar question arises in Josephs most recent paper. She presents clinical materialthat suggests a reading like the one I have offered above (Joseph 2000). Also, thequestion of the analysts authority enters into the clinical picture here. I do not haveadequate space to elaborate on this aspect of things here. The reader is referred tothe entire issue of thePsychoanalytic Quarterly, Knowledge and Authority in thePsychoanalytic Relationship, Vol 65: 1265, for further consideration of the matter.



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Gabbard then reflects on how his patient reacts to his analysts

desire for recognition: Repeating the scenario that occurred with hisparents, he sensed that I wanted him to fall in line with my expecta-

tions, and he derived great pleasure from digging in his heels and

defeating me. I had failed to appreciate that he was trying to communi-

cate to me that he was doing the analysis in the way he had to do it, and

that my failure fed his own developmental difficulties in feeling appre-

ciative (p. 705). Gabbard attributes the turnaround in the case of Mr. F

to three factors: (1) his resilience in the face of his patients attacks;

(2) his recognition of what he calls the two-person nature of the prob-lem. My awareness that my countertransference resentment was con-

tributing to the impasse. . . . (p. 710); and (3) successful interpretation

of the patients internal conflict. No doubt Gabbard is correct. However,

I would argue that the second factor, Gabbards acknowledgment of

his countertransference resentment, is what allowed the stalemate to

yield because the battle, at that point, was no longer joined. And with

the battle no longer joined, there was, as Gabbard describes, space for

both him and Mr. F to consider Mr. Fs conf licts and symbolize his

experience. An additional point worth reiterating, and one that Gabbard

acknowledges though in my estimation underemphasizes, is the fact

that his desire for gratitudenot simply his resentment of his patients

ingratitudecontributed to, and in important ways engendered, Mr. Fs

resistance, the digging in of his heels.

In light of this comparison between the clinical offerings of Joseph

and Gabbard, I ask the following question: At the level of the resistance

as experienced by the patient in the clinical moment, is there a differ-

ence between an analyst whose desire is expressed through a model

of the mind and a clinical technique that emerges from that model

(Joseph), and an analyst whose desire is manifested in the wish for a

gratifying object relationship based on an unresolved conflict from the

analysts past (Gabbard)? It seems to me our conventional answer to

this question is that the latter is much more suspect, because it implies

that the analyst has more self-analytic work to do. Yet I suggest that

both analysts are searching for lost objects, just dif ferent ones. One

could argue that the former circumstance is more difficult for the ana-lyst to perceive and self-analyze because the desire is both expressed

and hidden by a clinical technique that, at that particular clinical

moment, is contributing to the resistance. At the level at which the

resistance is joined, the patient may experience both desires similarly


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as the analysts demand for the patient to respond in a particular way, a

demand that puts the patient in an alienated position. This is a veryimportant issue, and one that requires further investigation.

SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF

NARCISSISTIC RESISTANCES

As I asserted above, the transference/countertransference dynamics

engendered by the analysts imposition of his desire onto the patient are

common, not uncommon, in day-to-day psychoanalytic work. Differentmodels of clinical process use different words and concepts to grapple

with what are, in my view, similar phenomena. For neo-Kleinians, the

centrality of projective identification describes and accounts for the

intersubjectiveor dual-relationresistances I have described above.

For the self psychologist, the empathic failure is the central feature

of analyst-engendered narcissistic resistances. For those oriented inter-

subjectively, the analysts irreducible subjectivity and countertrans-

ference enacting are constitutive of resistance and also the stuff of

successful analytic treatment. While there are certainly important dif-

ferences among these ways of conceptualizing clinical process, I am

arguing here that such seemingly different conceptualizations are

all attempts to deal with the ubiquity of narcissistic resistances in our

work and analysts struggles with successfully negotiating them. Analysts

struggle with narcissistic resistances precisely because we are inti-

mately involved with our patients in their creation.

While I believe it is true that the different clinical perspectives

I mentioned above are trying to tackle the same basic clinical issue,

I also believe that they have very different solutions to a common prob-

lem. To consider adequately these different solutions would require

another essay. However, I do think it furthers my current discussion

for me to summarize one of them briefly.

The solution that carries the most theoretical weight is the concept

of the analytic third. By now it is fair to say that there is a significant

psychoanalytic intellectual history behind this idea. I want to emphasize

that this is a theoretical solution to a theoretical problem. This solutionhas clinical implications. Essentially, the solution to the problem of

dual relations in the analytic setting is the establishment of a third

term. Conceptually, the notion of the analytic third is isomorphic with

oedipal relations (triadic structures as opposed to dyadic structures).

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This tradition of the analytic third started, after Freud, with Winnicotts

transitional object. Lacans concepts of the Symbolic register and thebig Other (1988, pp. 235258) were extensions of Winnicotts seminal

idea.13 Green (1975) and Ogden (1994) have written extensively on the

topic as well, incorporating Kleinian theory. Greenberg (1995) has

contributed similar ideas from a more explicitly interpersonal psycho-

analytic point of view. All of these analytic thinkers strive to f ind a way

out of the problem of the analysts desire. Their collective answer to this

problem is that if analyst and patient can f ind a way to talk about the

patient such that their discourse feels to both participants like asharedobject rather than a contested one, then the analytic third is present.

Lacans solution was to avoid logical and sense-building interven-

tions with the analysand. He emphasized punctuating that which is

other to the patients conscious discourse, such as slips, repetitions,

puns, forgetting, contradictions, and the like. These formations of the

unconscious are, quite precisely, the analytic third.14

The concept of the analytic third and the clinical processes it

informs can falsely suggest that analyst and patient easily cooperate

in their pursuit of analytic goals. Often this is not the case. As I said

above, analytic discourse can be contested rather than shared. This may

mean, of course, that there are times when the analyst must confront

the patient with what he or she thinks is going on and not back down.

That is, there are times when the analyst must impose his or her think-

ing, his or her desire, on the patient and speak straightforwardly about

the clinical situation at hand. This is an important clinical issue, a thor-

ough discussion of which would take us beyond the scope of this paper.

It is important to note that Joseph herself has made compelling argu-

ments in this connection, especially with respect to the clinical issue of

how the analyst might deal with omnipotent defenses of narcissistic

patients (see Maldonado 1999; Joseph 2000; Purcell 2001).

In spite of the clinical truth that, at times, the analyst must not back

down from a particular point of view, it is fair to say that much of

our clinical literature offers, or describes, the opposite solution to the

problem of narcissistic resistances. Numerous analytic writers over


88

13Lacans theory of the Symbolic has several other sources besides Winnicottmost notably Levi-Strauss (1963)but it is fair to say that Winnicotts seminal ideaof the transitional object has great kinship with Lacans Symbolic and his privileg-ing of triadic structures.

14See Wilson (1998), Laplanche (2000), and Poland (2000) for similar examplesof otherness.



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the past ten years or so have reported cases where the analysis has

turned from various degrees of stalemate to demonstrable progresswhen the analyst has managed to analyze or otherwise maneuver

him- or herself out of a mutually created narcissistic resistance by

understanding his role in the problem. Through this understanding,

the analyst backs down, thereby removing himself from the field of

contest.15 That removal allows the patient a sense control and autonomy

and an ability to think more flexibly.

For example, Steiner (1993) grapples with the to and fro of the

dynamics of projective identification in his paper on analyst-centeredand patient-centered interpretations. Using a different theoretical lan-

guageyet clearly struggling with the same set of clinical issues

described by LacanSteiner tries to find his way out of his and his

patients mutually projecting onto each other. Steiners admittedly par-

tial solution to this dilemma is, not unlike Gabbards, to take more of

the interpretive burden onto himself and to put the stress on his own

experience and the patients experience of him. This is in contrast to

interpreting in a more objectivist mode by commenting on the workings

of the patients mind and on what the patient is doing to the analyst.

Others who have offered similar solutions to the same clinical problem

include: Schwaber (1983, 1992); Viederman (1991); Renik (1993b);

Hoffman (1983, 1994); Kantrowitz (1993); Almond (1995); H. F. Smith

(1995); Chused (1996); Weiss (1995); Coen (1998); Grossman (1999).

The point of debate here is whether the analysts backing down

facilitates for the patient a necessary (and salutary) separation from the

analysts pressure and desire or reinforces the patients use of omnipo-

tent fantasy and other manic defenses. It may, of course, do both.

Ones answer to whether this is a salutary step in the analysis would

depend on many factors; ones theory of mind and clinical process

and what counts as clinical evidence are but the most salient of those

factors. This debate, in any case, points to the dialectical nature of

clinical psychoanalytic work. In the natural history of a psychoanalytic

treatment the analysts stance shifts and changes. Addressing the inter-

action, backing away from the patient, confronting the patient, insisting

or not on ones point of viewmany things happen over the course of

89

15Pizer (1992) describes an aspect of what I have in mind: [T]hose momentswhen the analyst stepped outside his or her accustomed position . . . have a qualityof the analysts yielding to some subtlety of being in the patient . . . (p. 218;emphasis added).



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a treatment. As I said at the beginning of this paper, I am describing but

an aspectof clinical process that often goes unrecognized.

CASE ILLUSTRATION

This brief case summary is intended to illustrate some of the main

points presented here. I hope it demonstrates how my own narcissistic

issues and unresolved conflictsin short, my desireclothed in a

conventional theory of technique, contributed to resistant periods in

the analysis. In some ways, what I relate below goes without sayingbecause I describe in quite traditional ways how my countertrans-

ference contributed to an enactment. Of course, I am asserting a more

universal clinical dynamic that is not limited simply to the particulars

of this case.

Mr. R, a divorced man in his early forties, had struggled through

the first year of his analysis. He came for treatment because of periods

of crushing despair and hopelessness about the future. Though talented

in a number of areas, he was convinced there was something drastically

wrong with him. He worried he would be alone the rest of his life. He

was terrified of planning assertively for the future. He had difficulty

thinking about his career and the next direction in which he wanted it

to go. He desperately wanted to remarry but worried endlessly about

being rejected. Like Hamlet or Prufrock, he could not make a decision

or let a woman know he liked her. The youngest of five children, he

came from a middle class family where emotions were hard to read

and conflicts rarely addressed. Though close to his mother when a

young child, he had long since viewed his parents with embarrassment

and some shame: they seemed unhappy, scared, and depressed. These

feelings drove him, decades ago now, to move far away from the family;

he struggled to call them or visit them, fearing the feelings of shame,

anger, and sadness he often felt when around them. Mr. R often

lamented: My parents dont seem interested in my life, what Im doing,

or what Im feeling.

My approach to his problems during this first year was to examine

his conflicts with him, specifically the imagined negative conse-quences of various actions, should he take them. We discussed his

passivity and the safety he felt in keeping his distance from his friends

and me. We touched on the gratification he got by complaining. We

discussed his views of his parents as weak and depressed and his


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worries about surpassing them or moving beyond them. He felt his

suffering was special and that he deserved special treatment andattention by his family and friends. He felt bitterly resentful when they

didnt attend to him in this way. We discussed how he expressed his

anger through the distance he maintained from people. When possible,

I directed his attention to how these issues manifested themselves in

the transference.

Though he gained much insight into his masochistic stance

toward his life and the world, none of this got us very far. In addition,

my approach exacerbated his masochistic sense of analysis; much ofthe time he felt it an onerous burden. However tactfully and open-

mindedly I directed Mr. Rs attention to our interactionand espe-

cially to the atmosphere of struggle often between ushe took my

observations to be criticisms that he was not letting me help him.

In the terms I have used in this paper, much of the first year or so

of analysis felt contested. What was my contribution to this con-

test? My subject position with respect to this patienta perspective

gained only in retrospectcould be described as follows: I was a newly

graduated analyst looking to build up my analytic caseload; I decided

to work with Mr. R for a markedly reduced fee; I was without supervi-

sion. All of these factors contributed to an exaggerated therapeutic zeal

on my part. Within this particular professional context in which I found

myself, I identified with the patients struggles in a number of impor-

tant ways that only exacerbated my desire to somehow change and

cure him. For example: Mr. R regularly told himself to mellow out

about things, especially about a woman he was dating. He told himself

that its not a big deal whether things work out or not. As a younger

man I myself had struggled with a similar way of thinking regarding a

deeply held ambition of mine, and had realized my self-deception only

when it was too late. With Mr. R, I wanted to redress a conflict within

myself (more accurately, a loss unsuccessfully mourned), with which

I had struggled very much alone, and I did so by trying to assure

my patient I was there for him and would help him avoid the self-

deception from which I had suffered.

The ways in which Mr. R and I discussed this mode of thinkingand the anxiety that lay behind it are too complex to characterize

adequately. The end result, however, is easy to describe: Mr. R felt that

I was telling him to stop thinking this way. Rothsteins description

(1999, p. 544) of a sado-narcissistic enactment captures accurately

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Mr. Rs and my interaction around this issue. No doubt, given his maso-

chistic character structure, he unconsciously involved me in ways thatmade him feel victimized. Yet, none of this awareness was available to

him at that point in the analysis. What was available to me was a feel-

ing, a strong sense of here we are again: once he started his com-

plaints of despair, or his needing to mellow out and take it slow, I

could already feel the enactment occurring, and most any intervention

I made that addressed his discourse as defensive, as related to anxiety

and worry, led inexorably to his feeling that I was telling him what to

do or how to think. And a vitally important part of this feeling was mysense of guilt: I was contributing to a dynamic between us that, at this

relatively early point in the analysis, felt contested, stuck, and in some

ways damaging to him.16 I should emphasize that what I have just

described was my subjective sense of a particular way in which Mr. R

and I struggled during this part of his analysis. For Mr. Rs part, though

he complained some, he voiced no concerns that the analysis was in

some ways stuck or that I was contributing to the trouble. His attitude

was characteristically passive: this must be how analysis is.

After a while, for reasons I could not fully explain to myself at the

time, I decided not to interpret the defensive aspects of his pseudo-non-

chalance or his complaints of despair. I simply asked Mr. R to tell me

more about these feelings. Over the next several sessions he did. And

his way of speaking gradually came to have a different quality. He

talked about his despair without massaging it. He had moments of gen-

uinely questioning himself without demanding immediate answers

from me or condemning himself for not knowing them. He found him-

self describing ways in which he orchestrated interpersonal situations

so he would feel left out or dissed. At times, he realized, he made

up scenarios so, as he said, I can feel angry and bitter and resentful.

My understanding of our interaction was that as I stopped inter-

preting the defensive and gratifying aspects of his complaints (from the

point of view of compromise formation) he felt I was not implicitly

telling him to stop feeling what he was feeling; it was now okay for him

to feel as bad as he wanted to feel and to complain about feeling it as


92

16That Mr. R, like many masochistic patients, wanted me to feel guilty for doingmy job (as a defense against his sadism towards me) is another, complementaryreading of the material I have presented here. However, to point this out to him wouldhave, in my view, further exacerbated the dual relation resistance I am describing.And the idea of my simply doing my job, or functioning analytically, obscuresthe desire that underwrites my doing my job.



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much as he wanted to complain. My sense was that his primary wish

was to tell me how bad he felt without being thrown off by mewithout my desire (or his perception of my desire) getting in the way.

In this case my conscious wish was to help him look at the uses to

which he put his despair. He was unable, at this point in the analysis,

to examine our interaction and his feelings about the analysis without

severe superego intrusion.In my estimation, there was no other way out

of this infinite regress than for me to stop contributing to it. In keeping

with what Gabbard (2000) and Steiner (1993) describe, when I removed

myself from the field of contest, Mr. R felt much freer to think abouthimself. This showed in his ability, perhaps for the first time in our

working together, to analyze himself. As he talked about the details

of how bad he felt at times, he began to notice he was feeling better.

He became more curious about his own thoughts and spoke more

freely. He felt more in control and less overwhelmed.

Soon after, for the first time in the analysis, he reported a dream:

Im on some kind of raft with a couple of other people, off shore, not

totally at sea, but Im afraid the waves might overtake us. The raft was

made out of concrete, of all things. Youd think it wouldnt float but it

floated just fine. We were out there for a purpose; we had a task to

do or something. Thats all I remember. He reported this dream in

his typically halting manner. We discussed his discomfort in telling

me the dream. He had few ideas why he was feeling uncomfortable;

he just was. This is how Ive felt a lot in here, though not recently.

Deaf for the moment to his having said that, I said, I wonder whether

you are worried that if you let your thoughts go about the dream you

would be swept out to sea. He thought about that briefly and said he

didnt think so. Though there was the possibility we might get taken

out to sea, he said in a more comfortable tone, I wasnt all that

worried about that. He fell silent and became more halting, and after

a while he said he had no more thoughts about the dream. I then asked

him about the piece of floating concrete. Yeah, strange huh? He was

silent again for a bit. It was about the size of this couch. I said:

Sounds like the dream has something to do with your thoughts about

being here. In response he got realistic: Well, since I am lying onthis thing it seems like it was just an easy source of comparison. . . . But

I have been feeling stronger recently, more hopeful. Somehow the con-

crete is related to that feeling, which, I have to say, Im suspicious of,

because its so foreign to me. Like the sea is my despair, and somehow

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I feel more confident that I can swim in my depression and handle it

without getting swallowed up. I then asked about the other peoplewho are also holding onto the concrete raft. Well, I think it was only

one other person, not two. It was a man. We were doing something

out there. We were supposed to be there, on a task of some kind. . . .

I guess, he said with surprise, the other guy sounds like you. Its hard

for me to acknowledge that this might be helping me and its feeling

more like were in this together.

FRIEDMAN REDUX

Mr. R, obviously halting and tentative in this series of interactions with

me, peers from behind his (sado)masochistic way of being and begins to

see and experience something else, some other, less masochistic way of

being. His subject positionas the defeated, helpless masochistis

beginning to change. Mr. R talks to me differently, in a way that is both

more his own and more our own. There is a sense of the thirdnow,

the dream and our talking, however tenuous and evanescent. When I set

aside my conscious agenda, my technique, he begins to find his own

faltering voice. I had wanted a certain experience with Mr. R that was

underwritten by a theory of technique (defense analysis) and my own

narcissistic concerns. I first caught onto my use of technique as an ex-

pression of my own defensiveness because I saw my approach was not

working. Upon further reflection, I realized it was being driven predom-

inantly by an old struggle of mine. Then I saw through my own defen-

siveness, a defensiveness that amounted to my unwillingness to listen to

parts of his mind as reflected in his speech. Who was being defensive?

Who was being resistant? We both were, though I was in a position to do

something about it. What emerged was a clinical process less contested

than shared: we were more in this together. My desire shifted to a dif-

ferent one, more aligned to the patients interests at the moment. And I

would again wonder whether it made any difference to Mr. R, at the level

at which he experienced the resistance, what factors drove my contribu-

tion to it. If my unresolved conflict were not part of this particular clinical

interaction, I still may have contributed just as mightily to the resistantatmosphere by my overall approach of interpreting anxiety and defense.

The gratification I felt from this series of interactions with Mr. R

was substantial. As Friedman says, I had reached a verdict of satisfac-

toriness. Yet my feeling of satisfaction was not based on any conscious


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agreement or assent on the part of Mr. R. Nor did I ask him to reflect

on why he was feeling more hopeful. It seemed to me that that wouldbe another attempt on my part to claim some therapeutic territory for

myself precisely when he was just starting to feel he had a right to some

of his own. I felt good simply because I was able to get out of his way

enough so he could begin to see himself.

There is no easy resting place in clinical psychoanalysis. With

Mr. R, in subsequent months, my more open and inquiring stance

to which I had become quite attacheditself became a source of resis-

tance. Mr. R had retreated again, though perhaps not as far as I feared.The hours had become labored and tiresome. I felt the need to address

his retreating more directly, which I did. This time, as though I had

enough credit in the psychoanalytic bank, he was better able to talk

about his fears of me and others to whom he is close without the

degree of suffering that had accompanied such interactions previously.

Although Mr. R was now less brittle, my focusing too frequently,

no matter how tactfully, on his anxiety often led to a more contested

atmosphere. In the end, my maintaining a relatively flexible stance

and not being committed to any one way of being with Mr. R seemed

to be the most important aspect of my working successfully with

him. As Kennedy (2000) writes in his illuminating essay on the emer-

gence of subjectivity in psychoanalysis: I suggest that things take

place in various shifting positions between analyst and patient, where

the subject opens up or closes down. This shifting becomes the basis

for human subjectivity. Becoming a subject involves some sort of open-

ing up; but one cannot ignore the closing down (p. 884). Clearly in the

case of Mr. R, he and I both were emerging subjects. Any particular

position of mine, while possibly salutary at one point in time in con-

tributing to an opening up of the process, could at another contribute

to a closing down, to stasis.

While Friedman (1993) is right to emphasize that in psychoanalysis

there is a demand for work . . . a bending of purpose, [and] a conflict

of wills (p.13), we can also say that the analysts recognition of his

demands on the patient, his recognition of the desire and will inherent

in the endeavor of analyzing, is the first step towards moving beyondthe dual relation. Such recognition is often crucial in creating a space

for something other to emerge, a third thing, born of the analytic

interaction but slightly separate from the individual participants, a dis-

course less contested than shared.

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