The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Volume 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis by C. G. Jung

Author:C. G. Jung [Jung, C. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSFERENCE

[436] The transference introduces all sorts of difficulties into the relationship between analyst and patient because, as we have seen, the analyst is always more or less assimilated to the family. The first part of the analysis, the discovery of complexes, is fairly easy, thanks to the fact that everyone likes to unburden himself of his painful secrets. Also, he experiences a particular satisfaction in at last finding someone who has an understanding ear for all those things to which nobody would listen before. For the patient it is a singularly agreeable sensation to be understood and to have a doctor who is determined to understand him at all costs, and is willing to follow him, apparently, through all his devious ways. There are patients who even have a special “test” for this, a special question which the analyst has to go into; if he cannot or will not do this, or if he overlooks it, then he is no good. The feeling of being understood is especially sweet to all those lonely souls who are insatiable in their demand for “understanding.”

[437] For patients with such an obliging disposition, the beginning of the analysis is, as a rule, fairly simple. The therapeutic effects, often considerable, which may appear about this time are easy to obtain, and for that reason they may seduce the beginner into a therapeutic optimism and analytical superficiality which bear no relation to the seriousness and peculiar difficulties of his task. The trumpeting of therapeutic successes is nowhere more contemptible than in psychoanalysis, for no one should know better than the psychoanalyst that the therapeutic result ultimately depends far more on the co-operation of nature and of the patient himself. The psychoanalyst may legitimately pride himself on his increased insight into the essence and structure of neurosis, an insight that greatly exceeds all previous knowledge in this field. But psychoanalytic publications to date cannot be acquitted of the charge of sometimes showing psychoanalysis in a false light. There are technical publications which give the uninitiated person the impression that psychoanalysis is a more or less clever trick, productive of astonishing results.

[438] The first stage of the analysis, when we try to understand, and in this way often relieve, the patient’s feelings, is responsible for these therapeutic illusions. The improvements that may appear at the beginning of an analysis are naturally not really results of the treatment, but are generally only passing alleviations which greatly assist the process of transference. After the initial resistances to the transference have been overcome, it turns out to be an ideal situation for a neurotic. He does not need to make any effort himself, and yet someone comes to meet him more than halfway, someone with an unwonted and peculiar wish to understand, who does not allow himself to get bored and is not put off by anything, although the patient sometimes does his utmost to rile him with his wilfulness and childish defiance. This forbearance is enough to

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