'The reborn eye transforms the old deed' Some thoughts about psychoanalytic identity and time

摘要

A few Leitmotifs of a lifetime dedicated to psychoanalytic work are presented: The a priori assumption of psychoanalysis is that everything psychical - whether in patients or in ourselves, in culture and society, or in the religions - can preferentially be understood as expression of conflict and complementarity: that everything in inner life may best be studied as struggle between opposites and of how these polarities gradually complement each other. Almost everything can become acceptable if it is being interpreted as conflict. This has to happen in very specific and concrete terms, for psychoanalysis is the art of the specific. The universally valid is scientifically very important, but in clinical work it remains empty unless filled with specific experiential content. The antithesis between inner and external reality, between subjectivity and objectivity, between understanding and explaining, determines all psychoanalytic discourse. A modern version of this antithesis pits the narrative character of how we work with our patients and report about this work, against the ever increasing pressure to express everything in numbers, in diagrams, in percentages - i.e., the tension between the qualitative and the quantitative, between the time flow of the biography (its narration) and the timelessness of what is counted. Another Leitmotif is the basic attitude and motto of "exploring instead of judging", entailing the systematic superego analysis, especially the work on the superego transference. An important element of problematic, even noxious countertransference is the therapist's acting out of a superego attitude, e.g. in form of confrontative ("drive oriented") interpretations that are experienced by the patient as reproach. A cliche contradicted by experience is that of the almost exclusive value of transference interpretations. Clinical work shows that interpretations outside the transference may also be of great help and importance; in particular, the exploration of issues in current relationships outside of treatment may have an emotional urgency that may make them ideal for recognition and working through of unconscious conflicts. The central question always remains: What do we best focus upon if we want to bring the unconscious conflicts closer to resolution.