ON PSYCHOANALYSIS
403
Freud's major contribution was an attempt to examine those devils
scientifically. Three processes went hand
in
hand throughout the
development of Freud's ideas. One was the treatment of the sufferers
who came for help, the second was the training through the analytic
experience of new healers and, finally, the formulation of a psycho–
logical theory of character and personality development based primari–
lyon the interaction of child and parent through necessary stages in
the development of character structure.
At this point I would like to distinguish between the first and
third of these processes, that is, between the treatment of specific
sufferers and the development of an explanatory theory of how they
came to be suffering. It
is
important to note that the relationship
between these two processes has changed from the day of the first
patients and a nascent theory to today's fully articulated theory and
rather more knowledgeable patients. In the early days of analysis
patients came to an obscure and radical physician who was begin–
ning to explore and find in their unhappy behavior the basis of a
general theory not only of mental illness but also of character devel–
opment. Today the patient has some knowledge of the theory; the
analyst is fully armed with explanations for the patient's behavior and
has a relatively high status in the community. Far from being revolu–
tionary, psychoanalysis is now one of the mainstays of conventional
wisdom.
The development of psychoanalytic theory was dependent on the
productions of the patients, but these productions were a function not
only of the experience of the patients, but also of their interactions
with Freud. Patients do not talk about all things, but about those
which at the moment seem to be troubling them- those relationships
that do not resolve themselves. But regardless of how much the
healer wishes to conceal his own feelings about what is significant
-and Freud was acutely aware of this- the patient will usually
divine them. And in the analytic situation of both Freud's early
patients and for those persons who are in treatment today, the patient
digs for his own motives under conditions of considerable anxiety. The
ambiguity of the situation which is deliberately fostered by the analyst
makes the patient dredge up more and more material, most of it self–
denigrating and guilt-producing. It
is
possible to look at a good part
of analytic therapy as patient training, during which the disapproval
