Before I start talking about Freud's essay "Observations on Transference-Love," I'm gonna take a moment to talk about terms. There aren't very many good terms to refer to someone who is in psychoanalysis or psychotherapy. "Client" is a commonly used one, but it focuses a bit too much on the economic dimension of therapy for me to like it very much. "Patient," which Freud uses often, is too medical for me. I like the term "analysand," which refers specifically to psychoanalysis, mainly because it's kind of a cool word and I like the symmetry it suggests. I will generally use that term in this blog, unless I'm talking about other non-psychoanalytic forms of therapy, in which case I'll use the most common one, "client."
To give a bit of historical context, Freud wrote this essay because evidently women falling in love with their analysts was a big problem for the legitimacy of psychoanalysis. Freud is put into the amusing position of arguing that psychoanalysis upholds the norms of "conventional morality" while still claiming that psychoanalysis is not about upholding conventional morality. Freud tries to argue that transference-love is different from "genuine love," but eventually the only difference between the two that he can actually be certain about is that transference-love happens within the analytic situation. Reading him struggle with this realization is both amusing and intriguing, because it makes me wonder what the actual difference between the two is, and why that difference matters.
Two things struck me as I was reading this, and I should probably mention them before I delve into talking about the meat of the essay. First, Freud's notorious sexism is definitely coming through strong in the entire essay. This is mainly because the problem of transference-love for Freud is mainly a problem between male analysts and female analysands. The gendered quality of this interaction leads Freud astray in his theorizing at various points in the essay, or at least constricts the conclusions he can make about the differences between "genuine love" and "transference-love." Second, this essay is full of legitimizing rhetoric about psychoanalysis. Freud worked hard not just to create theoretical space for psychoanalysis but also to win over the hearts and minds of the general public. Interestingly, these discussions from Freud meant to legitimize psychoanalysis typically fall either into the category of "arguments that continue today" and "arguments where Freud is definitely on the right side of history." For example, in one place in this essay Freud basically defends the basic premise of therapy, that women should be able to have close (nonsexual) relationships with their male therapists. I think this wouldn't seem like a big deal today, but back then it appears that this kind of relationship was seen as taboo to some extent.
Freud states that an analysand falling in love with "her" analyst is just another form of resistance, something that interferes with treatment but at the same time makes room for analysis. Interestingly, Freud in an aside states that it wouldn't make sense to urge analysands to "go ahead and fall in love with the doctor so that the treatment may make progress." On the surface, this feels like an obvious point: Freud is right that the transference loses its spontaneity. But what does it mean that spontaneity is an important (maybe even necessary) characteristic for transference to have? On some level, it seems strange that Freud is concerned with analysts encouraging a process that supposedly happens naturally -- after all, if the transference-love is going to happen, won't it occur whether or not the analyst officially suggests it? To put the question in a different way, would it be more beneficial for the treatment if the analysand experienced transference-love or if they experienced no transference at all? If there was no resistance then wouldn't psychoanalysis be impossible? You might say that if there was no resistance then psychoanalysis would be unnecessary.
The point I'm trying to make is relatively straightforward -- transference is not something that happens in a vacuum. The analyst elicits the transference along with the analysand who provides it. Different analysts will push the psychoanalytic relationship in different directions, and those directions will provide the field within which the transference manifests. Freud believes that transference is inevitable -- all you have to do is be a neutral observer, and the transference will naturally show itself. But in reality the stance of the "neutral observer" creates a specific kind of field for the transference -- one in which transference-love is experienced as resistance and where "genuine love would make her docile and intensify her readiness to solve the problems of her case, simply because the man she was in love with expected it of her."
Another way of putting this is that unless the stance of the analyst is flexible in regards to the transference, then there will always be limitations on what transference can be analyzed and what transference is taken for granted. It is completely reasonable to imagine an analysand whose "transference-love" -- whose resistance -- would lead her to be docile, and another analysand for whom being able to fall passionately in love with his analyst is a sign of the therapy's success. This goes back to Freud's sexism, by the way -- because he sees the role of women within the analytic encounter in a specific light he is unable to remember that the transference has to be analyzed within its own psychic context. It turns out that the lack of resistance as Freud saw it could be a form of resistance itself, while what may look like resistance may actually be a sign of the analysand's newfound freedom.
One of the weighty questions that Freud attempts to tackle in this essay is the difference between "genuine love" and transference-love. As I've shown, the places where Freud starts looking for this answer rapidly fall apart, when we realize that the difference is going to be specific to each individual. I think that Freud rapidly realizes this, however, as he begins to backpeddle by saying that "being in love in ordinary life, outside analysis, is also more similar to abnormal than to normal mental phenomena." He also says that "[transference-love] is lacking to a high degree in a regard for reality, is less sensible, less concerned about consequences and more blind in its valuation of the loved person that we are prepared to admit in the case of normal love. We should not forget, however, that these departures from the norm constitute precisely what is essential about being in love." In short, Freud says that at best the only difference between the two is a matter of degree, and besides that the only true difference is that one happens within psychoanalysis and the other doesn't.
At the end of the day though, I do have to agree with Freud that there is a difference, and even if this is the only one it is a big one. Transference-love is transference-love because it is there to be analyzed. If analysts were having intimate relationships with their analysands, then the self-reflexive quality of this relationship would end. In part, this is because of the loss of asymmetry between analyst and analysand, but I think more importantly there is a certain amount of reflexiveness that is impossible without the limitations. In romantic relationships, talking about the relationship itself is a task slipped into the cracks, in brief flurries of frankness. But within psychoanalysis the feelings and everyday moments that two people experience within the context of a relationship are what falls through the cracks. Being able to zoom in on these moments in this way is something that is practically impossible in the context of an actual relationship.
If you haven't noticed, there's this tension in Freud's essay (and in this post) between transference as a result of the intersubjectivity of the analytic encounter and transference as a process that occurs throughout one's life. In the former, transference is an artifact of psychoanalysis, while in the latter transference is something that exists objectively within the life of the analysand, even outside of psychoanalysis. Both of these are called transference, and they are both meant to be the same thing, but why do they have to be? Maybe there is something fundamentally different about transference within psychoanalysis and transference outside of psychoanalysis. After all, if there is any difference between transference-love and genuine love the two must be fundamentally different in some way.
Transference can help the analyst on its own, by providing a connection between the analyst and the analysand which furthers treatment. Or it act as resistance, something to be analyzed. The problem for me theoretically is that I see no reason why these two manifestations of transference couldn't happen simultaneously. How can an analyst tell if this or that manifestation of transference is a resistance or an aid to analysis? I think this is a broader problem of transference -- what forms of transference in life are to be encouraged and what forms are to be discouraged?
Fortunately, the paper I'm writing about next, "The Dynamics of Transference," definitely talks about this problem and about the different forms of transference, so I'll continue writing about these questions in that post. I'll end with some notes on different specific passages that stood out to me. (Also, by the way, the quote I used for the title of this post is by Adam Phillips.)
- "To urge the patient to suppress, renounce or sublimate her instincts the moment she has admitted her erotic transference would be, not an analytic way of dealing with them, but a senseless one. It would be just as though, after summoning up a spirit from the underworld by cunning spells, one were to send him down again without having asked him a single question."
Wow, this quote is so ridiculous and amazing I laughed out loud when I read it, this is probably my favorite quote from this essay, although I don't really think of psychoanalysis this way personally.
- "The psycho-analyst knows that he is working with highly explosive forces and that he needs to proceed with as much caution and conscientiousness as a chemist."
More awesome psychoanalytic metaphors. Even though I don't really agree with this metaphor's implications, I still find hilarious the image of psychoanalyst as scientist carrying a beaker full of hazardous material with tongs.
- "Genuine love, we say, would make her docile and intensify her readiness to solve the problems of her case, simply because the man she was in love with expected it of her."
Uh, yeah, this is by far my least favorite quote of this essay, just in case you were curious, for obvious reasons.
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