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Fear of Object Loss as a Resistance to Change in Analysis
Abstract
In this lecture, I have tried to demonstrate that certain patients have difficulty in changing character traits, symptoms, or superego attitudes because to do so involves the fantasied loss of a connection to a highly cathected, usually idealized object representation. Such a loss involves specific feelings, but all are akin to grief and mourning. The pain of continuing the pathological compromise formations is lesser than the pain of loss. I would add once again that such a defensive process may well be part of the dynamics of all patients, since it is part of the human condition to have to defend against object loss. However, in some cases, such as these, it becomes a crucial factor in their resistance to change.
Extant grief studies examine the way humans mourn the loss of a nonhuman, be it an animal, object, or abstract concept. Yet little is known about grief when it comes to robots. As humans are increasingly brought into contact with more human-like machines, it is relevant to consider the nature of our relationship to these technologies. Centered on a qualitative analysis of 35 films, this study seeks to determine whether humans experience grief when a robot is destroyed, and if so, under what conditions. Our observations of the relevant film scenes suggest that eight variables play a role in determining whether and to what extent a human experiences grief in response to a robot's destruction. As a result, we have devised a psychological mechanism by which different types of grief can be classified as a function of these eight variables.
This paper reviews the various meanings given to "working through" by Freud and others. The relation of "working through" to "analysis" is discussed and illustrated.
The development of the concept of identification in the work of Freud, Ferenczi, and Abraham is reviewed and analyzed from the standpoint of the development of the psychoanalytic object concept in general. Problems in the theory are seen to be related to ambiguity of the terms, ego and object, especially as reflected in the idea of introjection. The concept of identification, on the other hand, is shown to have undergone consistent evolution and expansion.
Freud's clinical discovery of the negative therapeutic reaction was one of the fundamental reasons for his proposing the Structural Theory of the mind. Yet he and subsequent writers provided very few clinical examples to clarify the definitional components of this significant finding. Consequently, there have been frequent controversies as to the various meanings, manifestations and dynamics of the negative therapeutic reaction. In this paper there was an attempt to illustrate a particular kind of negative therapeutic reaction, based on Freud's explanatory concept of 'borrowed guilt', as he expounded it in The Ego and The Id. For this purpose, excerpts from an analysis before the manifestation of the negative therapeutic reaction, during, and following its resolution, are presented in this paper. This manner of presentation may provide a basis for defining the phenomenon and understanding its dynamics within the analytic process. Hopefully, this paper illustrated both one of Freud's meanings of the negative therapeutic reaction, as well as confirmed his optimistic prediction that when it is based on 'borrowed guilt', its resolution is amenable to analysis.