The Perverse Subject of Analysis

Jackson Pollock, Number 1A

In my view, the analysis of perversion necessarily involves the analysis of the perverse transference countertransference as it unfolds in the analytic relationship. (p. 67)[…]

The perverse intersubjective constructions generated in the course of the analysis of perversion are, in my experience, inevitably (to a considerable degree) inaccessible to the analyst’s conscious awareness as they are unfolding. […] The analyst must in a sense come to understand the perverse transference-countertransference “after the fact”, i.e. in the course of his doing the psychological work required to become aware of his own unconscious experience of (and participation in) the perverse transference-countertransference. (p. 68) […]

The perverse subject of analysis is the narrator of the erotized, but ultimately empty drama created on the analytic stage. The drama itself is designed to present the false impression that the narrator is alive in his or her power to excite. The perverse analytic scene and the perverse subject of analysis are jointly constructed by analyst and analysand for the purpose of evading the experience of psychological deadness and the recognition of the emptiness of the analytic discourse/intercourse. In a sense the perverse subject of analysis constitutes a third analytic subject intersubjectively created by, and experienced through, the individual subjectivities of analyst and analysand in the context of their separate but interrelated personality systems. (p.69) […]

Perversity in the transference-countertransference represents a background that presents itself primarily in the form of a well disguised sexual excitement associated with unconscious efforts on the part of the patient to thwart the analysis in fundamental, but difficult to recognize ways (for example, the patient’s unconscious excitement associated with his or her chronic inability/unwillingness to generate a single, original thought in the analysis. (p.70) […]

The perverse individual experiences a sense of inner deadness, a lack of a sense of being alive as a human being (khan 1979, McDougall 1978, 1986); at the same time, there develops a set of concretely symbolized defensive fantasies that life exists in the intercourse (both sexual and non-sexual) between the parents and that the only way to “aquire” life is to enter into that intercourse (the source of life) from which the individual is excluded and left lifeless (Britton, 1989; Klein, 1926, 1928, Meltzer, 1973). Of course, in a literal way, it is the parental intercourse that is the source of the patient’s life, but this biological fact has for the perverse patient failed to become a psychological fact. 

At the same time, the perverse patients fantasize/experience the parental intercourse to be an empty event, and imagine that the lifelessness of the primal scene is the source of his or her own sense of inner deadness. In part, this fantasy is based on the patient’s own envious attack on the parental intercourse. It also reflects the patient’s experience of the emptiness of the bond between the parents […] and leaves these perverse individuals feeling that there is no hope of attaining a sense of vitality of their own internal world and in their relations with external objects. What is particular to perversion of the sort being discussed is the compulsive erotization of the void that is felt at the center of what might have been, and pretends to be, a generative union between the parents. The excitement generated by this erotization is used to substitute for a sense of one’s own human aliveness as well as the recognition of the humanness of other people.  (p.99) […]

There is at the same time a critical act of self-deception that allows the patient to isolate himself from awareness of the reality of the danger to which he is subjecting himself. The individual deludes himself and prides himself in his belief that he is able to “fly closer to the flame” than anybody else without being damaged. He or she believes him or herself to be immune to all danger while at the same time being intensely excited by it. The desperate need to extract life from the empty parenat intercourse that leads the patient to flaunt external reality and unconsciously claim to exist outside of the law  (p.100-101)[..]

The foregoing comments might be briefly stated in the form of the following set of schematic propositions:

• In healthy development a sense of oneself as alive is equated with a generative loving parental intercourse.[…]

• Perversion […] represents an endless, futile effort to extract life form a primal scene that is experienced as dead

• […] These perverse individuals introject a fantasied degraded intercourse and subsequently engage others in a compulsively repeated acting out of this set of internal object relationships.

• A vicious cycle is generated in which the fantasied intercourse of the parents is depicted as loveless, lifeless and non-procreative; the patient attempts in vain to infuse it with pseudo-excitement from which he attempts to extract life. Since the fantasied parental intercourse from which the perverse patient is attempting to extract life is experienced as dead, he or she is attempting to extract life form death, truth form falsehood. Alternatively, the patient may attempt to use the lie as a substitute for truth/life. (Chasseguet-Smirgel, 1984)

• An important method of attempting to infuse the empty primal scene with life is the experience of “flirting with danger” tempting fate by “flying too close to flame”

•  The desire of these perverse individuals is coopted by and confused with the desire of others leading them more deeply into defensive misrecognitions and misnamings of their experience in order to create the illusion of self-generated desire (Ogden, 1998)

• Analysis of perversion […] fundamentally involves recognizing the lie/lifelessness that constitutes the core of transference-countertransference enactment of the perversion. In this way, the patient, perhaps for the first time in his or her life, feels enganged in a discourse that is experience as alive and real.

• The initial feelings of aliveness and realness in the analysis arise form the recognition of the lifelessness/ie of the transference-countertransference and consequently are most often frightening feelings of deadness. (p. 101-103) […]

Ogden, T. H (1999) Reverie and Interpretation; Sensing something human. Karnac: London.

Transference & Countertransference Positions when working with Survivors of Sexual Abuse: 2) The Sadistic Abuser and the Helpless Impotently Enraged Victim

We know that any child who is sexually traumatized over time, especially by a parent, will internalize and identify with those aspects of the perpetrator, who is also a loved and trusted figure in the child’s life. Though this identification, the child attempts to preserve her bond to the perpretator by becoming like him. As an adult, the patient’s unconscious identification with her victimizer allows her to keep at bay experiences of herself as helpless, terrified, violated. Instead, she projects her “weakness” on to another, thus feeling to some extend empowerment.

A)  In the transference, one manifestation of a patient’s abusiveness is her tendency to penetrate and invade the therapist’s personal and psychic boundaries. Some patients, for instance, literally burst on the treatment scene, entering the room in an intrusive and forceful manner.[…] In addition, some patients have a way of staring intently and penetratingly at the therapist as if they are trying to get inside and control him. Other patients persistently notice and comment on many aspects of the clinician’s personal appearance or office. […] Through her invasion of the therapist’s boundaries, the patient betrays her identification with her abuser(s).[…] In doing so, she is replicating in the treatment her perpetrator’s ruthless lack of respect for and greedy smashing of psysical and psychological boundaries.  Countertransferentially the therapist[…] may experience great discomfort at and anticipatory anxiety about being exposed and penetrated. Identified with split-off victimized aspects of the patient, the clinician may find himself dressing differently, straitening up the office, trying to be in the right mood, and avoiding eye contact with the patient in order to stave off episodes of intrusion. The clinician may think about upcoming sessions well in advance with anxiety and dread. At this point of course the therapist is reenacting many of the behaviours and emotional states the patient experienced in relationship with her abuser(s) and tries to protect himself from the inevitable intrusions by guessing what might set off the patient and fixit it ahead of time or by avoiding real engagement with the patient. All this, of course, replicates the kinds of strategies the patient employed to try to protect herself form her victimizer(s).

B)  Another way in which a patient can abuse her therapist is through entitled demands for attention, such as extra sessions, between-session phone contact, lengthened sessions and so on. Often the therapist has set the stage for this by responding to crises with increased availability […]. Gradually however the therapist begins to feel used, furious, but helpless to extricate himself from what has become a regular way of relating to this patient. […] The patient, in this case, exploits the willingness of the clinician to be available and, as her perpetrator did before, develops an insatiable demand for more. In turn, the clinician experiences aspects of the patient’s victimized self; the therapist assumes the blame for the abuse, feels violated and enraged but helpless to do anything else but accede to the patient’s demands. (p. 173)

C) Yet another manifestation of the patient’s identification with her perpetrator(s) is the self-destructive or violent enactments in which the patient often engages[…]. When the patient acts self-destructively and presents the therapist with a fait accomlit, often accompanied by disturbing, visible physical evidence such as cuts or burns, it is, at one level, a vicious attack on the therapist’s holding and containing effectiveness. There is often a sense of the patient saying, “Take this. Don’t think for one minute that you can really have an impact on me because, in the end, I’ll do exactly what I want”. The clinician confronted with a patient’s self-destructive acting out often is shocked and paralyzed by the intense rage and violence inherent in the acts. Frequently, the clinician feels unable to interpret or to intervene in any way, fearing that to do so will provoke an escalation of action. The therapist feels attacked, helpless and fearful about where the acting out might ultimately lead. The therapist also feels trapped by the patient’s acting out; he may search for exactly the right intervention in order to prevent his patient from spinning completely out of control […]. Like her abuser, the patient translates impulses into direct action, action that terrifies and impotently enrages the therapist, who in turn, assumes the role of victim. Identified with the victimized aspects of the patient, the therapist feels trapped paralyzed and intent in somehow, preventing escalation of action. This of course is congruent with what the patient experienced as a child as she struggled to prevent escalation of sexually abusive activities. (p. 173-174)

D)  There is at least one more way in which these patients enact identifications with their abusers and is to destroy hope. In most cases, adult survivors are terrified that good things cannot last, that promises will always ultimately be broken. Rather than waiting for the inevitable disappointment to occur, patients with sexual abuse histories often intervene in the buildup of anxiety that accompanies hope by assuming control of the situation and shattering what they are convinced is only an illusion anyway They do this by threatening premature termination, resuming self-destructive acting out after long period of abstinence, developing new symptoms such as psychosomatic disorders, or sabotaging extra-therapeutic successes in relationships or jobs. Countertranferentially, the therapist feels deflated by these attacks on hope that often occur when things seem to be going particularly well in treatment. The clinician may become depressed and is sometimes tempted to passively accede to hopelessness through relational withdrawal, loss of energy, muted affect.[…] Often the sexually abused child experiences periods of hope, during which the perpetrator stops abusing for one reason or another, presenting himself more consistently as the good object form whom the child yearns. Inevitably, however, the abuse resumes, or a younger sibling begins to be victimized by the same abuser with our patient’s knowledge. In treatment, when things are hopeful, the patient may identify with the perpetrator and seemingly smash to buts progress and hoe. Identifying with the victim, the therapist experiences the despair and deflation once held by the victimized child.

To the extent that they (the therapists) remain locked into a countertransference experience of victimization, they are likely to evoke intense feelings of toxicity and guilt in the patient. These patients perceive themselves to be powerfully toxic anyway and struggle with chronic, free-floating guilt. Why they sense unconsciously that they have victimized the therapist, unbearable states of shame and guilt are engendered. Protecting themselves from conscious awareness of these intolerable affects and self-representations, they project them onto the therapist, who then is perceived as toxic and deserving of attack, and the cycle begins again.

Eventually the transference-countertransference paradigms in play have to be made explicit, so that the patient can begin to tame and integrate currently disowned self-representations and identifications.  This is delicate work when the self-representation or identification that is activated is that of abuser. The thought that she might actually sadistically mistreat another after having been so badly used herself nauseates and enrages her. Premature interpretation, which can be precipitated by the clinician’s desire to extricate himself from the role of victim, can engender defensive denial and rage, along with further splitting off and enactment of the identification. Too early interpretation also can evoke intensified guilt and self-punishment, with concomitant submerging rather than integration of the abusive representation.

Other more subtle ways in which the therapist enacts abusiveness are through premature interpretations, intrusive questioning, or encouraging a patient to stay with a traumatic memory beyond what is therapeutically indicated in order to satisfy voyeuristic fascination with the abusive experience […]. The patient, in turn, may respond with woundedness, or she may passively submit to the victimizing aspects of the therapist while storing up uncommunicated impotent rage.

It is crucial for the treatment for the therapist to experience and enact the role of victim to the patient/abuser. Only this way can the clinician begin to truly appreciate at a visceral level the terror, paralysis, hopelessness, and impotent rage lived by the patient when she was a child.

Davies, J. & Frawley, M (1994) Treating the Adult Survivor of Sexual Abuse: A Psychoanalytic Perspective, United States of America: Basic Books

Psychoanalytic Engagement

The interactive dimension of the patient-analyst relationship received considerable attention in the early work of Ferenczi (1916, 1950, 1955) and Rank (1929) and also in the interpersonal literature, particularly in the writings of Sullivan dating from the 1930s. […] Attention to the analytic interaction is also evident in the writing of Lacan (1936, 1952, 1956, 1961), Winnicott (1947, 1963, 1969, 1971), Little (1951, 1957), Fairbairn (1958), Guntrip (1969) and Searles (1965, 1979)

Although these authors differ in terms of their theories of personality […] they agree that the analytic interaction constitutes a transactional field. I believe this has radical implications for a theory of technique.[…] We are forced to expand the traditional view of transference as the analytic “playground” (Freud, 1914) to recognize that transference and countertransference constitute an interlocking unity, and that all of the transactions in the immediate field of experience constitute primary analytic data. […] In the choice of whether to address the immediate transaction, and to what degree, or not to address it at all, the analyst exerts leverage on the way the relationship will evolve. […] 

The analytic transaction, by its very interpersonal nature, provides unique opportunities for new experiences. […] Focusing on the transactions between patient and analyst, and on what goes on affectively between (and within) each of them, as primary analytic data makes it possible to delineate what is being structured interactively in process. Styles and patterns of bonding, expectations, sensitivities and patterns of responsiveness including tendencies to collusion, or to carrying the emotions of the other can begin to be clarified. 

This allows for disavowed experiences to be reclaimed and for exploring the motivations for the prior disavowal in the context of a new sense of choice, competence, and responsibility. Emotionally significant associations to the past and memories of relevant historical material not available before often then begin to become accessible, allowing new perspectives on the past. This in turn, can open the possibility for a necessary and important process of mourning. 

[…] Many authors have also noted that with more disturbed or primitively organized patients the analyst’s active responsiveness may be essential if any kind of therapeutic change is to be achieved.

 […] Winnicott (1947) focused on the importance of knowing that one can evoke the analyst’s hatred so that one can work through one’s own, and of the opportunity to experience that it is possible for the analyst to withstand and survive one’s aggression[…] Winnicott also notes that the opportunity to discover that one has impact, and what that impact is enable the patient to clarify the limits of his or her assumed helplessness as well as his or her assumed omnipotence in relation to the analyst and that the unflappable analyst may be useless when it would have been essential for the patient to know he or she is able to elicit the analyst’s responsiveness. […] I would also add that is also important to be able to explicitly acknowledge and address the interactive subtleties of what transpires affectively between patient and analyst, including the ways they connect and the ways they lose each other in real time and in real ways, as this shifts from moment-to-moment. 

Stern (1983) notes that certain categories of experience “can never even occur unless elicited or maintained by the actions of another and would never exist as a part of known self-experience without another (p.74) What I am stressing is that certain kinds of experiences simply cannot be achieved if the analyst is not affectively engaged and responsive in particular ways.

[...] Bird (1972) writes that there are times when “our not confronting the patient becomes in itself not merely an unfriendly act but a destructive one. By not confronting the patient with the actuality of the patient’s secret, silent obstruction of the analytic process, the analyst himself silently introduces even greater obstructions (p.249)

[...] There are also times when the analyst must take a stand and set limits to protect the relationship and the work from becoming unduly compromised. Nevertheless, I think that is is not just a matter of setting limits. What is also often crucial is demonstrating our commitment to the process and to the relationship despite the patient’s behaviour and despite our own reactions to it. 

[...]For some patients the new experience that the analyst is willing to engage with them even when it is risky and problematic can be profoundly meaningful. The opportunity this can provide to discover that it is possible to touch and be touched in a positive way, even in the context of negative interactions, and that it is possible to move through a toxic interaction and reach a positive outcome, can constitute an experiential kind of insight that throws old assumptions open to question. […] of course it matters how we engage affectively, how we work with what goes on affectively between patient and analyst and whether we deal with this explicitly and constructively.

Bregman-Ehrenberg, D (2012) Psychoanalytic Engagement In L. Aron & A. Harris (Eds.) Relational Psychoanalysis: Evolution of Process vol. 5, pp. 1-8