passive, he would merely reconcile himself "to the emptiness of reality" (Stekel, loc. cit., p. 187). In the second he would be "filled with enthusiasm" for something or other or some person or other. But what will determine this choice of his as to whether he will be passive rather than active in his "second life"? In your view, will the determining factor manifest itself spontaneously in the course of the analysis, and must the doctor carefully avoid swaying the balance to one side or other by his influence? Or must he, if he does not renounce the right to canalise the patient's libido in some particular direction, renounce the right to be called a psychoanalyst, and is he to be regarded as "moderate" or altogether as "wild"?[1] (Cf. Furtmüller, "Wandlungen in der Freudschen Schule," Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, vols. IV., V., 3rd year, p. 191.) But I think you have already answered this question, since in your last letter you write: "Every interference on the part of the analyst is a gross mistake in technique. So-called chance is the law and the order of psychoanalysis." But, torn from its context, perhaps this does not quite give your whole meaning. With regard to detailed explanation of the psychoanalytic method before the beginning of the analysis, I think you agree with Freud and Stekel: give too little rather than too much. For the knowledge instilled into a patient remains more or less half-knowledge, and half-knowledge engenders "the desire to know better" (than the analyst), which only impedes progress. So, after brief explanation, first "let the patient talk," then and there point out connexions, then after the exhaustion of the conscious material, take dreams.
But there another difficulty confronts me which I have already pointed out in our talks: you find the patient adapting himself to the doctor's tone, language, jargon, whether from conscious imitation, transference, or even resistance, when he can fight the analyst with his own weapons; how then can you possibly prevent his beginning to produce all manner of phantasies as supposedly real
- ↑ "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses." Monograph Series, No 4, last edition.
