A detailed study was done of the five occurrences of a striking conversion symptom that appeared in the first 400 hours of an analysis. This study focused on the dynamics of the resistances and of the transference to explain why the symptom appeared when it did. It was possible to identify a consistent, repeated pattern of shifts in the resistive dynamics in response to interpretations of resistances that led to the emergence of the symptom. This type of process was viewed as demonstrating the concrete expression of the transference neurosis, distinguishable from the characteristic transferences that are seen moment-to-moment throughout a treatment from beginning to end. The implications of this distinction for the theory of the concept of the transference neurosis have been presented, emphasizing their importance in the clinical setting and for clinical theory.
What has once come to life clings tenaciously to its existence. One feels inclined to doubt sometimes whether the dragons of primaeval days are really extinct. -Sigmund Freud (1937, p. 229) The devil made me do it! -Flip WilSon T o begin with, I would register a disagreement about the beginning, that is, about the English translation of the title of Laplanche's paper, "Faut-il brûler Melanie Klein?" My literal rendering of his language into English would be "Must One Burn Melanie Klein?" or "Does One Have to . . . ?" or "Is It Necessary/Required to . . . ?" It might be considered a small shift in meaning and nuance but is not an insignificant one at all, to my ear. 1 "Should we" implies a consideration, a prospective choice based on some principle. "Must we" implies a desire to avoid or at least to reconsider a choice or an action.The transposition in meaning indicates for me the alteration from a proposition to eliminate a peril to one rather of considering the prevention of such an elimination. In either case, Laplanche is playing with us; and the dialectic that he insists on our acknowledging throughout is already at work in his titular invocation. I shall return to this later in considering the immensely important position he articulates against mechanistic theoretical and clinical notions.But for now it must simply be conceded that we, all of us, are possessed by things we cannot know and yet cannot dispel. Freud (1923),
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