The Ego and Analysis of Defense by Paul Gray

Author:Paul Gray [Gray, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc.
Published: 2005-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

ON DIMINISHING THE UNANALYTIC EFFECTS

OF SUPPORTIVE TRANSFERENCE

Having argued against relying on transference of superego elements for overcoming resistance in the analysis of those patients who are potentially able to gain more from essential psychoanalysis, I shall consider some ways of minimizing such measures. Some inroads into this subject were part of my introductory paper (Gray 1987, Chapter 5 in this volume). In the case of the second form of reexternalized affectionate, possibly more maternally based transferences, the task, for reasons I have touched on, is more challenging for the analyst, but rewarding for the patient.

First, let us consider some transference messages the medium might convey and how to substitute for them the messages the analyst relays: the ideas intended to further patients’ conscious, rational, and usable insight into how their mind works, so that they may gain greater autonomous control over it (as contrasted with interpersonal fantasy). Kohut left us with a useful description of a part of the mother as medium that has a self-esteem building (“affirming”) effect for the small child: “the gleam in the mother’s eye.” In a workshop at the International Congress in Vienna, I asked him how much “gleam” he felt should be conveyed in the analyst’s comments to the patient. His quick reply was, “You cannot do analysis with a computer!” I believe that answer avoids the point. Actually, there is a considerable range of analytically effective non-gleam, non-affirming attitudes the analyst can impart without beginning to resemble an impersonal computer.

What the analyst chooses to convey stems, optimally, from an ad hoc clinical decision. I am aware that the distortions of unanalyzed transference weigh heavily on what attitude the patient hears in any communication of the analyst. A professional man with considerable narcissistic character disturbance, with whom I chose to speak at one point in a particularly thoughtful, gentle voice, shook his head from side to side as though wishing to shut out my voice, and cried out, “Why are you shouting at me?” He was not being facetious; he heard it that way. Nevertheless, what the analyst manifestly conveys, the patient in most instances eventually perceives either as though the analyst is one who wishes to make an idea intellectually clear, or as though the analyst is willing, instead, to be supportive by being an “understanding” person.

It is dismaying the way many of the attitudinal components of wider-scope methodologies have spilled over into analytic contexts where such attitudes are unnecessary and contraindicated. I have “sat in” at classes in “standard” technique where the instructor gave advice about the manner of speaking to analysands. One recommendation was that the analyst always “share empathy” by speaking movingly and sympathetically when referring to a patient’s painful affect. A different setting yielded a suggestion that the analyst speak softly and tenderly, as a lover might share an intimate thought. Another group was instructed that to “like” the patient would be an especially important factor in the success of an analysis—there seemed only a choice between liking and disliking, no mention of tactful objectivity.

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