Recovered Intentions

The book L'intenzione ritrovata (Recovered Intentions)  [2006 http://www.psychomedia.it/pm-books/ravaglia/ravindex.htm ],  offers a synthesis of a kind of analytical work inclined to consider clients not as persons to be "cured" but as persons who can choose a defensive or an expressive way of being. Thus, the analytical work is not conceived as a "therapy" of "pathologies", but as a rational and emotional path that makes it possible to change one's personal way of conceiving existence. This book presents a conception of the analytical work that integrates many theories and is based on the idea that psychological symptoms and defenses are intentional and unconscious actions.

The following pages are

a partial translation of this book

As a result the text does not flow perfectly, because it is a mosaic of fragments taken from several chapters. I have not only eliminated almost all the clinical cases, but also the more strictly theoretical and epistemological thoughts. Certain themes are scarcely hinted at and few are fully expanded. Nevertheless I hope these pages may be able to give English readers some idea of the main reflections developed in this book.

INDEX

1. Intentional Analysis or Causal Analysis?
2. Subjectivity, Intentions and Choices
3. Intentionality of Defenses
4.Emotions and Old Feelings
5. Emotions and Defenses
6. The Analytical Path
7. Theoretical Bases of the Analytical Work
8. Emotional Contact and Normality
Bibliography

1. Intentional Analysis or Causal Analysis?

In this study my aim is to deal with a number of theoretical and clinical questions relating to the guiding thread of analytical work. Over the years I have gradually become convinced that analysis should be seen as a path rather than as a “cure” for some “disease” and also that analysis provides clarifying ideas for the questions which arise when thinking about that longer path which human existence is. From the moment that my belief became certain, my work changed. I stopped asking myself what to do for my clients and instead I began to focus on what they already do to take their minds off their sorrow.

I believe that the fundamental objective of analytical work is to help people to tackle the sorrow belonging to their past and the inevitable sorrow which life brings and to verify their ability to tolerate sorrow by using those resources which do not exist in early childhood. This work makes psychological defences superfluous and leaves the person free to live to build something rather than to avoid the inevitable suffering.

One very important aspect of a non medical notion of analysis regards the way of interpreting the sufferings that clients declare they wish to free themselves of. These are pseudo sufferings created by the client and as such cannot be “cured” but rather “unmasked”. Analysis of defensive intentionality brings us to deep suffering which is largely a past “old feeling” of suffering and is to some extent present suffering. However, in neither case can anything be “cured”. The sorrow can neither be cured nor compensated for, but can be integrated through the experience of “mourning” (meant in the broad sense); analysis can therefore be seen rather as a process which is capable of facilitating positive elaboration of the sorrow, than as therapy.

The intentional interpretation of defensive processes is present as the “second soul“ of three important lines of psychotherapy in this century (Psychoanalysis, Reichian Therapy and Cognitive Psychotherapy). Other currents of psychotherapy and in particular some of their major representatives, explicitly approve an intentional interpretation of human behaviour and its defensive components.

2. Subjectivity, Intentions and Choices

From the intentional perspective, the psychotherapist places himself as a person close to another person and discusses his actions as actions. From the causal perspective the psychotherapist is interested in a hypothetical system for repairing a mechanism (libidinal, energetic, cognitive, affective) in such a way as to produce alternative effects.

Regardless of reductionist theories, even if traumas, various types of support and repression influence the responses the subject gives to stimuli, their influence is always indirect in that their “specific weight” depends precisely on the elaboration of every experience the person has had.

I do not wish to describe other sessions but to quote certain thoughts made by my clients, who after feeling “tormented” by certain symptoms or “incapable” of acting in an appropriate way, discovered that they had constructed certain defensive attitudes.

A) “ I spent Sunday with my boyfriend and we felt really good together until a certain point. Then I felt that horrible, intense solitude that in general I didn’t think I could stand. It wasn’t him that made me feel alone, but his closeness and his affection made me feel that the need I feel can’t be satisfied in that way. Now it’s clear to me that it can’t be satisfied in any way at all. At that moment I noticed that my head was filling up with the usual doubts that make me distance myself from him. The usual things: if I really love him, if our thing can last and so on. For the first time I felt it was very convenient for me to fill my head with that rubbish, because in that way I didn’t feel empty and I didn’t feel I couldn’t fill that emptiness. And this time I didn’t get detached. I felt both that sadness and the pleasure for this situation”.

B) “When I wake up in the morning I don’t feel I’m going to sink into apathy or into indifference straightaway, into that frame of mind I’ve often spoken to you about. A split second before, I realise I can choose whether to stay in contact with myself (and around now that means feeling sad), or whether to “organise myself” in such a way so as not to feel that sadness and to take on the role of the girl who’s depressed, misunderstood and aimless”

These statements lend support to the intentional interpretation of the defensive processes expressed by various authors and in particular to the statement by Roy Schafer according to whom, in the course of analysis “ the subject under analysis presents himself ever more frequently as being the person in charge of the present moment in his life. Subjects under analysis ever less frequently state that they are driven by impulses, emotions, defences or conflicts and they present themselves ever more frequently as architects of their own existence” (1983, p.111).

3. Intentionality of Defenses

I shall try to show why I find it both sensible and fitting to consider defences as actions, that is as a person’s intentional intervention on reality carried out in order to avoid or limit or distort contact with some form of emotive suffering.

I include among defensive actions many behavioural patterns and attitudes which are generally considered separately: what one does in the narrow sense, what one does “in the head” (internal dialogues, illusions, the building of non realistic images of oneself and so on), the way in which one communicates or acts (attitudes, character traits, character or personality structures), what one does interacting in particular relationships (symptoms, provocation, “games”), or what one puts into effect over time (attitudes towards one’s own existence and “scripts”), what one does with more or less awareness (behavioural patterns which are accepted and in some way rationalised or disregarded), what one does in one’s own body (alterations in tonus or in particular functions).

This decidedly broad meaning of the concept of defence is justified by the intentional view of actions; from this perspective very different things are united for the very reason that they are a personal construction which hinders any contact with sorrow.

Therefore, the aim of analytical work on defences is to help the client to give up his childish pretence to live without suffering and to discover that he has both the adult resources to bear the painful side of existence and the opportunity to live for something rather than to avoid something.

Defences do not protect from sorrow, but only from the awareness of already experienced sorrow (by preventing it from being worked through and overcome), or of sorrow which is in any case inevitable. Moreover, they reduce the ability to experience joy and bliss.

I should now like to list some fundamental propositions for an intentional conception of defences, which I shall develop partly in this chapter and partly in the following ones.

a) Human existence is by its very nature replete with both sorrow and joy. While adults have the ability to bear both joyful and painful experiences, this ability is lacking in children, who see and classify the most sorrowful experiences of solitude, rejection, inadequate support and unstable contact as a real threat to their security.

b) The system of individual defences devised in early childhood is an adequate response to sorrow in that it reduces contact with sorrow. It does, however, produce other more superficial forms of suffering.

c) Moreover, such a system is constructed “without time limits” and so it is also carried over into future phases in which, having become an adult, the person is equipped with sufficient resources to work through sorrow.

d) Defences, therefore, serve so as not to feel real suffering (or at least to suffer in a more tolerable way in early childhood). Whereas the suffering that adults would like to “cure” with psychotherapy is a consequence (which has become too cumbersome) of maintaining defences. That is, suffering is the price the client unconsciously chooses to pay to keep up defensive attitudes and behaviour related to the genuinely painful side of life. The client would like to keep up his defences (which he is not conscious of), without, however, suffering for their consequences.

e) The paradox of analysis lies in the fact that the client starts analysis because he “feels bad” (superficially and irrationally) and would like to “feel good”, whereas analysis leads him to deep sorrow, which he fears much more than that produced by his defences. Analytical work demolishes the illusion of simply being able to feel good, but encourages greater contact with reality and makes experiences possible, which are both realistic and full of deep joy and bliss precisely by destroying childish dreams of well-being.

f) Analysis, therefore, consists of certain logically connected phases: the recognition of defensive intentionality , the confrontation with feared painful old feelings, a reclassification of old feelings (from unbearable to bearable); the processing of old sorrow; the acceptance of sorrow as one of the integral features of existence; experimenting with new and deeper human experiences and a redefinition of an existential plan (from the plan of living to avoid something to that of living for something).

g) This conception should be strongly insisted on, that is, it should be applied to all the problems the client brings to analysis. The phobic patient who has reduced himself to living in drastically confined space, the depressive and the client suffering from fits of anxiety are all to be considered as inveterate hedonists and not as victims. Every time we yield “compassionately” is tantamount to collusion and means foregoing profound change.

h) This interpretation of defences does not only apply to defensive processes associated with symptoms, but also applies to all those defensive actions, which unfortunately pervade the sphere of “normality”. Many things which are passed off as ideological or ethical choices, such as cultural interests or philosophical convictions, tastes or habits, libertarian needs, sense of responsibility, passions or displays of love, effects of “stress” or the inability to choose and so on, are simply attempts to avoid contact with sorrow.

i) One of the prices to be paid for successfully concluding a personal analytical path and for becoming conscious of one’s own defences, is that of discovering that social reality is largely constructed with the precise aim of “forgetting”. Therefore to achieve a good relationship with oneself, to become able to rejoice and to establish constructive relationships and to acquire the sensation and the conviction of living a meaningful life in both its wonderful moments and its terrible ones has a high price indeed. In fact it implies both the working through old and never integrated sorrow and the acceptance of inevitable sorrow both in present and future life. It also means the awareness of solitude which had previously never been seen clearly, with relation to people and social and cultural realities, which are markedly oriented towards concealing death and sorrow and towards fostering illusory forms of power, pleasure and knowledge. Discovering oneself, therefore, implies a constant sense of solitude in the world.

Analysis allows us to get to the point of recognising defences as intentional constructions, which are devised in critical situations in the past and actively maintained in the present. It may seem bizarre to consider a babe-in-arms as the intentional subject of a defensive process and obviously I do not wish to support such a brutal idea. However, those primitive defences constructed in the first year of life achieve a precise aim as do those of older children.

Daniel Stern puts our problem into perspective by explaining an important result of his research. “ The majority of psychological standpoints maintain that no self exists, if the individual does not possess self-awareness or is not self-reflective (.....) I agree with Schafer in saying that the “sense of self” is a vague concept and I think that we do well to leave it intentionally vague in this sense. What I mean is a subjective organising perspective which tries to arrange lived experience, whatever level such experience may be registered and organised at. New born babies begin subjectively to arrange their experiences with people and with objects in an active way at whatever level they are able, right from the moment of birth, and they even reach the most refined level of organisation attainable at that stage of life.” (1997, p.79). Considering the development of so-called “self” as a gradual process which is activated right from birth, we can even think that intentional processes are evolved gradually.

In every analytical path, one of the most important stages is that in which a person “discovers” he is not merely a spectator but an active participant in those situations in which he encounters one of his usual defensive reactions. If the past defences, such as for example splitting up, are not “automatic” but are activated intentionally, it is legitimate to think that, in the same way that an adult chooses every time to reinforce a defensive plan by activating a specific defence, in some way infants and children might also choose. If there is certainly a progressive shift from choices which are “ quasi choices” to real choices (even if they are unconscious), we can, with all due caution, speak of fundamental continuity in the construction of defensive intentionality from the crib on into adult life.

Obviously this perspective does not constitute a simple intellectual preference, but makes possible an approach to psychological disorders which does not conspire with the clients’ failure to take responsibility and is not in agreement with the unwitting desire which is present in many therapists to consider themselves as indispensable support for interlocutors who are seen as poor victims to “be saved”.

The moment has come to touch on a particularly delicate question, namely that of the possibility of applying an intentional interpretation to more serious pathological symptoms. Without taking for granted what cannot be taken for granted, I should like to suggest certain elements to think about. Such an interpretation is obviously incompatible with the “deficit theories”, according to which the manifestation of certain psychological disturbances may be the result of incomplete psychic development or of a lesion of “psychic integrity”. It does not exclude, however, the eventuality of “facilitating” conditions transmitted genetically and does not exclude that once certain unconscious choices have been made, they also produce consequences which proceed almost mechanically.

I should like to make a preliminary consideration of the reasons which seem to go against an intentional interpretation of non slight psychological disturbances.

An initial consideration regards the fact that certain drugs manage to relieve serious symptoms and that in this therapeutic process any analysis of defences is simply “skipped”. Arieti gives a crystal clear explanation of the question: “It is clear that many depressed patients and incidentally many who experience normal sadness, can find relief by taking certain drugs. This possibility does not belie the psychological origin of the emotion. It only proves that any intermediate physiological or biochemical factor which exists between psychological aspects and subjective experience can be modified. Exclusive interest for the intermediate biochemical stage represents a reductionist standpoint“ (Arieti-Bemporad, 1978, p.154).

If symptoms are not the effect of old feelings, but the actions with which the subject anaesthetises himself, dissociates himself or opposes contact with certain old feelings, drugs can affect manifest behaviour by reducing the inclination towards defensive actions, by modifying the physiological conditions of the perception of old feelings and reactivity to them. In reality the problem is not faced up to and overcome in this way, but only decreased. Pharmacological therapy is in many cases necessary for the very reason that often. no kind of analytical work can be gone ahead with in the presence of dangerous symptoms. In certain cases it is even necessary to take safety measures if it is thought that the client might be able to harm himself or other people. However, if the benefits of psychotherapy for people suffering from psychotic disturbances and who have received and continue to receive pharmacological treatment are already taken for granted, we can maintain that analytical work, in the sense that we have described in these pages, is legitimate with clients in a serious condition in place of backup psychotherapy which presupposes an interpretation of psychological disturbances based on the concepts of “incapacity“ and “deficit”.

Although Milton H Erickson is so pragmatic, as well as being brilliant, in his contributions he is also against any analytical interest in the strict sense and cautious in formulating general principles regarding psychic functions. He does, however, emphasise that psychotic symptoms can be understood as an active course of action on the part of the subject: sufferers from catatonia want to obtain something from their catalepsy. They are either controlling the external environment or they are retreating from the external environment; they are in any case doing something with an aim in relation to things external to them” (E.L.Rossi-M.O.Ryan, edited by 1985, p181).

Moving on now to “borderline” psychological disturbances, for which we often talk of an “absence” of integration of the psychic functions or of poor “consistency of the Self”, we can put forward an intentional interpretation of symptoms and defensive procedures with good reason. In these cases the old feelings are certainly more distressing and the defences are more radical than they are in “neuroses”, but to speak of “defective“ (Kohut 1977, p.20) or “damaged” (Kohut 1977, p.27) structures of Self is equivalent to reifying an intentional defensive process which the person is the creator of. Very often the use of such terms is associated with a (dangerous) ”protective” attitude on the part of the analyst and which is present when he feels more inclined to “give” than to explain the way in which the client uses his capabilities.

If the “theories of lesion” were valid the change during the course of analysis would be gradual because it would take place due to the gradual assimilation of the “nourishing and restructuring“ presence of the analyst. On the contrary, this is the course taken by superficial changes. If they are achieved, profound changes regularly take place following cognitive restructuring of the problem and when confronted with painful old feelings of lack of esteem, rejection or emptiness.

It should be said that with clients who show disturbances which are classified as borderline pathologies, the analyst effectively feels a strong sensation which can be translated by the expression “I have before me a very fragile person who cannot cope”. Instability in taking part in relationships, a readiness to suddenly destroy experiences, attainments and rapports by way of acting out, resolutely declaring an inability to keep certain reactions under control or “submitting to“ thoughts or emotions and sudden and apparently uncontrolled alterations during communication make it easy to see these people as being “incapable” of facing up to reality responsibly and with appropriate feelings. The feeling they provoke must, however, be acknowledged as a feeling and not as a reliable indicator of objective reality. This is exactly the feeling these people want to provoke in others and an analyst should not fall into this trap. Only the refusal of the analyst to give in to appearances makes it possible sooner or later for the client to be aware that he is active in the production of certain symptoms or attitudes.

Another apparently evident assumption can be summed up with the idea that psychotherapy can and must provide experiences to compensate for the damage caused by incomplete growth. Research which has documented a similar level of efficiency in very different types of psychotherapy has led us to assume that “aspecific” relationship factors are those which are really decisive in bringing about the change, but the conclusion is no more justified than is that according to which one gets drunk with a bottle of whisky just as one gets drunk with a bottle of grappa and so drunkenness depends on the use of a bottle. We still have to explain the specific relevance of the factors which evidently the most widespread theories do not consider fundamental. Working with clients who are in serious difficulty is most frustrating. It is less frustrating to believe that we are offering indispensable “corrective” or “protective” experiences than to decide to give minimal but real help which is rejected day by day by our clients and which makes profound changes possible only if and when it is accepted. The “certainty” of giving the milk which has been missing is reassuring, because if the results are mediocre, we can always think that “the patient’s condition was too serious”, while if the results are not good, a readiness to clarify what should be clarified leaves the disappointment of not having found the right path.

Not even the fear of traumatising more “fragile” people justifies holding back from analytical work on old feelings. Analytical work is dangerous only if carried out in the wrong way, that is, if the analysis of defensive intentions is to attribute guilt, if there is no genuine human involvement on the part of the analyst or if the analyst is afraid of the old feelings that the client is beginning to explore. Clients understand perfectly well if the analyst is working “for them” or “for himself” and if he believes in what he is saying and if he really feels what he expresses. The more serious the client is the more ineffective and dangerous analytical work on old feelings is if the analyst is not helpful, present and genuinely accessible. That is to say that such work is to be avoided when the analyst does not live with his own sorrow, does not know how to cry or is judgmental or irritable when he discovers he is not “efficient”. Analytical work should be avoided in these cases and not when the clients are “too serious”. If the analyst is unable to handle work which is extremely intense emotively , he has the right and the duty to make other forms of contribution which in any case he regards as being suitable. I only consider questionable the idea that such forms of contribution are the only ones feasible in less straightforward cases.

If the analyst is able to handle feelings of desperation and sorrow (both his clients’ and his own), analytical work is not dangerous, because when the clients do not feel ready, they simply put up effective resistance to analytical work. On the contrary, in the context of a genuine therapeutic alliance, when they begin to look their nightmares in the face, they suffer, they cry, but they feel more whole. “Collapses” never happen following retrieval of painful old feelings, because they are not “effects” of the sorrow but are in their turn extreme defensive manoeuvres. I have never recorded psychotic fits during sessions, when following confrontation with painful old feelings even with clients who had suffered past psychotic episodes.

Unfortunately, analytical work does not always give the desired results. A reappraisal of aspirations, however, prevents us from exploring people’s potentiality. Ten years ago, partly out of having a liking for her and partly out of recklessness, I started analysis with a woman who lived in drastically reduced mental and social space. She went to work but had no social life and was not inclined to face up to any kind of social interaction. A friend of hers went to do her shopping for her when she did not feel up to it. She had psychotic brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins and came from a wretched family, but she did not suffer from psychotic disturbances herself. What struck me was that she “was unable” to interact socially with almost anybody and yet she had gone to work right from a very early age. I thought that if she had come from a wealthy family “she would not even have been able to work”. I definitely tried to establish a human relationship with her and to meet her as a person and not as a “clinical case”, but I did not intend to get her to have an experience with me which would compensate for what she had not received from two totally inadequate parents. I tried to work with her on the things she did, that she said she was unable to do and that in reality she did not want to do. I would have felt easier if I had told myself that she would not have been able to change, whereas I kept asking myself every time what it was I did not understand. Above all I would ask myself how to get her to feel those emotions that evidently she was afraid of experiencing. Whenever she told me that there might be no sense in living, I would retort that she might not have been able to find that sense simply because she expected other people to make her happy. I did not feel happy at those moments, but I was convinced I was giving the right answer to a person who in any case was able to understand that she had wanted to provoke me. Ten years on this client is still in analysis with me even if for the last five years she has only had a session every two weeks. She has not only found “a more satisfactory equilibrium”, she has also not been confirmed in her illusions (of being more fragile than others, of being the victim of a dark world and so on). She has changed house and job, she lives with a man who is anything but maternal, she does not seek support from her friends and not even from me. In analysis she is trying to overcome some of the limitations she has in the expression of her sexuality. I believe I would not have respected her had I decided (for her) that she should have been less ambitious because she had not had “a normal development”.

4. Emotions and Old Feelings

In this chapter I propose to give at least a broad definition of the terms “emotion” and “old feeling”, as the former appears in very different theories with equally different meanings, whilst the latter, which is generally used somewhat vaguely, is used here in a quite specific sense. I should like, therefore, to begin by stating how I will not treat the subject of emotions.

We never observe emotions, but only people behaving in ways that we agree to label as emotive; therefore it is not appropriate to argue over “what emotions are”, as they should not be seen as “given objects” to be considered, but as the result of our way of considering people’s actions.

Once we have placed emotions among the actions of the persona and have accepted the idea of being able to identify an emotion on the basis of the presence of cognitive constructions and/or of sensations and/or of physiological reactions and/or types of manifest behaviour, we are still only at the beginning. We have not yet clarified what actions we consider as “emotive”.

We can consider emotion as the set of actions (or micro-actions) the person carries out (in his head, in his body and with his body) in, responding to a situation (external or internal) and also in registering his own reactions. Intention, on the other hand, should be seen as what the person does on his own initiative (in his head, in his body and with his body) in the face of a given slice of reality. In other words, we can consider as emotive what a person does to accept a certain situation and as intentional his action to react against a certain situation. Emotion and intention, therefore, are not two “givens” but two ways of considering the person in action.

Emotions are often seen as a “state” of the person, but that “state” which is really a dynamic process, is a common and personal response to a certain situation, it is a specific form of adaptation. Emotions, like intentions, are not “states” in the strict sense, but a way of describing what the person does when alone with himself (and what he is aware of) and what the person does with people and things. Sometimes emotions are seen as pure subjective experiences, but this is a dangerous choice as reducing emotivity to the subjective level easily leads to inconclusive arguments on the (causal) “relationships” between physical factors and and emotions, or between emotions and behaviour.

Rejecting a causal interpretation of the action means questioning the concept of motivation (and of “drive”), which is so much used in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Although the various motivational theories are couched in very different terms, they all agree in attributing the capacity to “push” an individual (or organism, or mind) , which would not otherwise act, to some sort of motivation. Kelly considers motivational explanations to be alternatives to scientific ones, as they are introduced when the researcher is unable to give a rational explanation of behaviour; certain determining internal hypotheses seem, therefore, to explain types of behaviour which have not yet been understood rationally and which make us “victims of psychic dynamics” (1977, p.1 and p.16).

The concept of old feelings is fundamental for a theory of analysis, as defences concern present situations only in as much as they refer to past experiences which have not been integrated. I shall now try to summarise my point of view on old feelings.

a) In early childhood, emotions felt to be have been avoided by activating specific defence mechanisms, that is mechanisms which, in terms of equal efficacy, were less limiting or counterproductive; all this concerns the past and does not determine anything in the present.

b) In the present there is, however, the opportunity to “retrieve” past situations in similar circumstances and it is possible to feel the sorrow associated with them. We can speak of old feelings when, in the present, someone has a “felt memory” of old situations which have not been integrated. The essential problem of the analyst is to help clients to work through their old feelings while giving up defensive mechanisms which have become superfluous.

c) The (cognitive) evaluations of an emotion (e.g. “I cannot stand the sorrow I feel when my mother does not respond”) turn out to be “stuck” to the emotion like a label to a parcel. So if an adult retrieves an “old emotion” in the sense that he reconstructs the old feelings of a past experience in the present, he also recreates the cognitive evaluation of that time.

d) Defences intentionally activated in the present are fundamentally the same as those activated in the past, because defences are also skills and in this field adults know what they learned as children. Anyone who is able to get angry in order to detach himself from a sorrow, is generally not able to faint or to become flustered in order to achieve the same end.

We can, therefore, state that “non-integrated old feelings” should not be seen simply as a memory, but as a memory which is emotionally significant and characterised by a cognitive evaluation that classifies the emotion in question as unbearable and produces a defensive mechanism.

In analysis, work on old feelings is very important. Not in order to create useless “abreactions” or to “discharge repressed energy”, but in order to see whether, using current resources, non-elaborated experiences can now be accepted and integrated. Accepting a past experience by experiencing its full emotional intensity leads both to a cognitive re-evaluation (a new “label”) and to a precise “collocation” of the experience itself: that is the client understands that that terrible experience of solitude should be classified among early childhood experiences and not among present or future ones. No adult experience of solitude is unbearable.

5. Emotions and Defenses

I should like to give at least an approximate definition of various concepts that I consider fundamental to the analytical work on defences: defensive emotion, pseudo-emotion, instrumental emotion and invented emotion. Pseudo-emotions and instrumental and invented emotions should , in any case, be considered defensive emotions.

a) I use the term pseudo-emotions to refer to emotionally significant actions which are not, however, true emotions, as they are constructed by merging, distorting, heaping together and heightening aspects of the overall individual “emotional capacity”. Unlike “genuine” emotions they do not pass the test of rationality (i.e. they are not comprehensible) and do not provoke genuine empathetic responses, but only perplexity and aversion or equally irrational collusive reactions. If someone is sad because he is coping with a loss (of any sort), we are perfectly able to understand his state of mind and we feel able to respond with warmth, compassion and willingness to help and we may even feel sad. If, on the other hand, someone in the same situation complains in a self-pitying way, tortures himself with guilt feelings and depresses himself by saying he feels inadequate, we feel an “instinctive” unwillingness either to second these emotional displays or to “console” or “reassure” the person. Only through lack of contact and through an unconscious intention to collude with the person by taking part in the “game” can we “be taken in by” this person’s defensive manoeuvre.

b) I use the term instrumental emotions to indicate emotions that are triggered neither as a genuine nor as an immediately defensive response, but merely as “back up” for some further defensive action. If, for example, someone (unconsciously) fears sentimental commitment, he can activate many types of defence (provocation, detachment and so on), but if he chooses to make himself less dependent by creating another, parallel relationship, he must to some extent “fall in love” with someone else. However interesting and attractive, this other person would not even have been considered in other circumstances. Therefore, we can say that in this case, falling in love with a second person is instrumental as regards the defence against a deep commitment with the first.

c) I use the term invented emotions to mean emotions that are not reasonably proportionate to the situation, but are “inflated” and obtained by “squeezing” little feelings and working on the imagination. We can get worked up about some small setback just so as not to seem “too easy-going”, or be moved simply to please someone who might consider us insensitive.

I would remind you that the concepts of pseudo-emotion and instrumental and invented emotion are merely keys to the interpretation of people’s actions. They should not be seen as a classification of “emotional entity”. Unlike the botanist, who classifies one flower as a marguerite and another as a tulip and who never finds a marguerite that can be “interpreted” as a tulip from a certain point of view, we can interpret an emotion that we are “not sure” about as a pseudo-emotion, but also as an instrumental or invented one. In fact the three terms emphasise certain significant aspects of a defensive emotion.

Joy and Sorrow

The two basic emotions (in that they constitute two privileged points of reference for the understanding of “emotional life”) are joy and sorrow. In the first months of life, when the child’s emotivity is rudimentary and we cannot yet speak of emotions, but only of “physiostates”, the major affective nuances are pleasant and unpleasant (Arieti, 1967, p.35). Cognitive development is what subsequently makes it possible to experience intense and complex levels of joy and sorrow and allows other types of emotive experience.

Anger

The distinguishing aspects of the emotive acts connected to anger concern the refusal of a situation, a disinclination to tolerate a certain state of things (“disgusting”) and an inclination to use direct or indirect forms of violence. I do not say that violence is a unifying element in this group of emotions. Violence as such is a type of behaviour that can appear in very different emotive situations. One can act with violence more out of fear or out of dedication to a cause than out of anger.

The various forms of anger are generally defensive, as we shall see later on. There are, however, situations in which to reject something is reasonable, effective and constructive. In such cases, the expression of anger constitutes the comprehensible emotional background to an action aimed at modifying reality.

A large part of the work of analysis lies in identifying anger where the client does not recognise it (for example in indifference, in rationalised contempt, in self-pity, in “tiredness”, in various “incapacities”, in “distractions” and so on), in encouraging the recognition of anger and, finally, in helping the client to understand and feel what sorrow this anger is protecting him from. At this point, without anger to complicate things, we can dedicate ourselves to seeing whether the sorrow is really unbearable and if it really is indispensable to live our lives divided, furious and closed to sorrow (and to joy).

Fear

Fear is expressed in a state of readiness aimed at forestalling and if necessary confronting or fleeing from a threat. It ceases with the relief of the danger avoided or with the sorrow caused if the feared event comes about.

In analysis we almost never work on fear as a reaction to a real danger. We speak of defensive fear whenever we cannot understand what the client is afraid of. Clarification is needed as to how such unpleasant emotive actions as, for example, “states of anxiety”, phobias, “panic crises” and so on can be effective as a defence. In order to understand this we must obviously see things from a child’s point of view. If the child finds accepting a painful experience unbearable, he may prefer the fear of a “possible” catastrophe to the sorrow of a “given” situation. Many years later, this fear no longer represents the response to a present situation, but the response to a non-integrated old feeling. Namely, the adult repeats the defensive move in order not to confront the old feeling that “torments” him. It is better – from this point of view – to have bizarre panic “crises” (which are, however, perhaps “treatable” and immediately “spendable” in order to attract attention and pity) rather than to feel the horror of an irremediable solitude that has already been classified as devastating.

Defensive emotions

a) Sense of guilt

A sense of guilt is always and in any case a defence and always and in any case irrational and irrelevant both for the person troubled by it and for the person who may have been injured.

Often, children have to choose between feeling guilty and “together with” a parent who “understands”, or feeling innocent and at the mercy of a parent with whom there is no contact.

In other cases, the sense of guilt serves to maintain an omnipotent self-image. Being guilty means having power. The sense of guilt reduces contact with fragility and the impossibility of altering certain situations and with many other painful things that are part of human life.

b) Depression

First of all, it should be said that in speaking of depression we are not speaking of an emotion, but (always and in any case) of an emotive disturbance, that is, of the defensive use of a set of irrational emotive acts, brought together purely by the intention of avoiding confrontation with painful situations and old feelings which are seed as unbearable. It is difficult to speak of a defensive role of depression with regard to sorrow, given the undoubted and often really terrible suffering that characterises depression. And yet it must be stated that the suffering of depression is a suffering created in order to avoid another sort of sorrow which, in early childhood was considered absolutely unmanageable. In analysis, when clients start to feel painful emotions in relation to memories or sensations of abandonment, rejection, or impotence, they immediately realise and manage to explain that between this sort of sorrow and the “black cloud” of suffering typical of depression, there is a very clear difference. So I do not in any way wish to minimise the suffering of anyone going through a period of depression, but to emphasise a distinction on which the possibility of guiding the analytical work constructively depends.

Apart from all this, it should be remembered that both in the mildest depressive reaction and in the most serious depressive crisis, the person shrinks, withdraws and acts in an apparently passive way in order not to integrate experiences or old feelings of loss, solitude and sadness. Considering depression as an “excessive” form of sadness or a pathological variant of sadness involves serious conceptual confusion and obvious difficulties in the analytical work.

If we consider sadness as an emotive act through which someone reacts to a loss, accepting it as a painful aspect of his existence and if we consider “grief” or “the work of grief” (in the broad sense, not just in relation to a death) as the process of elaborating sorrow and cognitive reorganisation that leads to acceptance of the loss, we must recognise that in depression both the emotion of sadness and the “work of grief” are absent, while affective expressions and cognitive acts never found in sadness and grief (sense of guilt, anxiety, low opinion of oneself and of life in general and so on) are present. Sorrow is clearly there. No-one is depressed “over nothing”. We must, however, be very careful not to confuse the unpleasantness of depression as a condition (limiting or devastating) and the sorrow of loss. Empathising with a depressed client over his “sadness” hinders us from having him confront and integrate the sorrow.

When the client enters a phase of “grief” he feels vulnerable to the least thing and responds with tears, but not in a regressive manner. He can even feel like a small child, but knows he is an adult who is rediscovering unpleasant old feelings which, however, belong to his own personal history.

c) Euphoria

I include under this heading various emotive nuances characterised by a feeling of imperviousness to sorrow and non-dependence on others. Sorrow may be explicitly recognised but without any emotive contact. The client concentrates on things whose importance he overrates, emphasises his autonomy, shows unjustified optimism towards certain eventualities and declares his own self-esteem by criticising people he finds frustrating and saying that he is fine without their unwelcome presence. Thus he reduces the perception of his vulnerability in various ways. It is essential to nip these boastful attitudes and displays of pseudo-autonomy in the bud, even though they are not serious and do not lead to abandoning the examination of reality.

d) Disparagement and contempt

These are diametrically opposed to love, to be found in the realms of anger and disgust. Disparaging people is always defensive, as it removes contact with a loss and establishes a relationship of “superiority” towards whoever has caused the sorrow. In disparaging others, we exclude the part of ourselves that suffers sorrow by making contact impossible.

To disparage behaviour, on the other hand, may not be defensive, as it is normal and even necessary to disparage destructive types of behaviour and approve of constructive ones.

Love

I should like to propose a first rough definition of the concept of love: we love when a) we feel admiration for someone or something, quite independently of any consideration as to possible gratification deriving from contact with or closeness to or using this thing or person; and when b) we feel an interest in the well-being of this “object” of love. More concisely, love might be considered the conjunction of disinterested admiration and benevolence. This implies that if everyone is loveable, love is made possible by the fact that the one who loves is prepared to see “who” stands before him and not just to realise the use he can make of this latter. In other words, if love does not depend on any “merit” of the person loved, it depends on the one who loves being “disposed” to consider and appreciate the qualities (whether utilisable or not) of the person loved.

I think that love should be considered as an emotion like any other. However, if all emotions are “equal” (apart from specific differences), love is, somehow, “a bit more equal than others”. Love does not just express the way a person feels or acts in relation to the pleasure/displeasure axis, in a given circumstance. It also expresses the capacity to come into contact with something or someone independently of desires. These are the reasons why I consider it reasonable to consider love as an emotion “of a higher order”. It is also an emotion that is never implicated in psychological disturbances.

When fear of painful old feelings has been overcome, love develops and shows itself quite spontaneously as it corresponds to a fundamental capacity in everyone. It is an emotion that matures during the process of individual growth and should in no way be “taught”, just as it should not be considered an aim of analysis. It is, however, an inevitable consequence of a successful analytical work.

Bliss

Seeing bliss as “great joy” would be a conceptual waste. Therefore, in my opinion either we abandon a theoretical use of this concept, or we introduce it and state specific conditions for its application. I believe we should choose the latter option and define the concept of bliss independently of that of joy. It is of course necessary to clarify what we are referring to when we speak of bliss. If we speak of something that is not related to joy.

With the integration of our old feelings, we feel compassion for ourselves, love for our own particular history, we give a sense to what we have done, whether right or wrong, and to what we have received, whether good or bad, we consider those close to us as individuals and consider life as an adventure to be undertaken rather than as an empty space to be filled. Bliss can therefore be understood as a condition of relative independence: even though we in any case depend on others to obtain gratification, we can still, quite autonomously, feel glad to be alive.

At this point, can we consider bliss an emotion? I would prefer in theory to introduce the concept of bliss into the theory as relative to a feeling which is realised in as much as we give space to the emotion of love. When one loves people (including oneself), or one loves what one does or what one understands, or reality as a whole, one experiences bliss.

6. The Analytical Path

Both an approach that emphasises the present and one that emphasises the past have grasped an essential aspect of the problem faced in analysis. I believe that it is possible to save the best of both approaches, by sustaining that in the present the client defends himself against old feelings, that is against non-elaborated emotions from the past.

The necessary phases of the analytical work considered in this way are as follows:

1) analytical work (cognitive) aimed at making it clear that the client does not “have” disturbances, but intentionally activates defences that produce certain disturbances;

2) analytical work (experiential) aimed at recognising that defensive acts impede the emergence of feelings or emotions;

3) analytical work (cognitive) aimed at making clear that the clients actively defending himself from old feelings (that is from feelings and emotions that are not related to the present but are “already his” and have not yet been integrated);

4) analytical work (experiential) aimed at gradually working through old feelings and recognising that these are bearable and no longer devastating;

5) explicit definition of the analytical path as a process of integrating old feelings; in his daily life the client must accustom himself to stopping actions which he already understands to be defensive, even if he is afraid, in order to continue with and to go more deeply into the work started in the sessions;

6) at this point there is a turning point in the analysis: the client uses the sessions principally in order to check with the analyst the process that he himself is managing (the giving up of defences and the discovery of a more intense emotional dimension); in this phase, aspects which have not yet been focused on are looked at, possible difficulties are examined, new defensive expressions are faced up to;

7) the client enters into a phase of grief; although he knows very well that he is an adult doing his own research in secure conditions, he feels very vulnerable, suffers over trivial things, experiences intense feelings of solitude, often cries; in analysis he is helped to weep “completely” with physical work, (with tears and sobs that rack his whole body); in this phase the nuances of old feelings and certain refinements of defences are made clearer; the relationship with the analyst is now mainly one of collaboration;

8) a virtuous circle is established: the client has ever less fear of emotions that are ever stronger; tears come easily, frequently and dramatically, but feelings of balance and stability increase; with tears, muscle hypertonus (personality shield) is reduced and the client feels his own body more and becomes more prepared to try real physical contact with people; the client faces up to social situations more effectively because he no longer fears finding in them emotional upsets that can activate old feelings, as he is living with these in a stable fashion; greater balance is also translated into constructive choices and personal successes; if new painful situations happen, they are faced up to with greater basic serenity;

9) the analyst’s controlling function diminishes; even if the client sometimes reactivates defences, he regains contact without the analyst’s help; he accepts sorrow as an inevitable component of his whole existence but feels that his life is important and that he is capable of doing many good things;

10) conclusion of the analytical relationship

Of course a real analytical path is not as linear as this outline. What is more, the analyst’s contributions cannot be programmed as they are made on the basis of the specific analytical material that the client brings to the session, and on the basis of the insights that the analyst manages to gain as he goes along. The outline merely describes the guiding thread of the analytical work, which remains, however, an adventure full of surprises, creative moments, tensions and unexpected openings, during which the internal change in the client and the personal relationship between client and analyst both develop in a quite singular way.

Even though the work on old feelings reconnects the person to childhood feelings and emotions that have not been worked through, it should not be seen as stimulation of regressive experiences. In fact, in order for the “retrieval of old feelings” to be useful, it is necessary that the client does not suspend his examination of reality. Simply accessing non-integrated emotions is of no importance. What is really precious is working through them and this is possible only if the cognitive and affective skills of the adult person are in operation.

Both during sessions and in the elaboration of an intense analytical work, clients sometimes adopt regression as a defence, in the sense that they enter into a state of “blind” desperation; they transform tears into a “crisis of tears”, they see themselves as “unable” to emerge from this emotion and feel very bad, without, however, experiencing the real suffering that comes from accepting that a certain sorrow really concerns their real (past) life. They feel very bad, but almost in a state of “suspended” time, that is, waiting for the suffering “to disappear”.

These manoeuvres are not useful and can be dangerous. If they present themselves, they should simply be interrupted and explained. The best way to interrupt such regressive manoeuvres is to show unconditional respect for the person and for the sorrow that may be supposed, but not expressed and at the same time, to show an absolute refusal of any involvement in the regressive trap.

At this point, I should like to examine what to me seems the real risk in performing an analytical work on old feelings, which depends largely on the analyst’s type of training. Carrying out an analysis requires neither special intelligence nor an encyclopaedic knowledge of psychotherapy. What is essential is not to be afraid of sorrow. A personal analysis is not enough if it has not led to a profound familiarity with the sorrow of early childhood and with the sorrow which is in any case present in adult life.

Conducting an analytical work on old feelings without having decided for a total and unconditional surrender to sorrow (inevitable sorrow, of course), means that serious mistakes can be made. The clients understand perfectly well whether the analyst is inviting them to undergo an experience that he himself has had or would have, or whether he is inviting them to do something that he believes to be only theoretically bearable. Nothing can upset the relationship of trust more than feeling one is being treated as a guinea pig or “just a client”. Apart from this, if the analyst is afraid and identifies himself in the client, he may turn out to be ambivalent and inconstant in communication and with his words encourage a work on old feelings which he discourages with body language messages of anxiety.

The client needs to feel that the analyst is not afraid of suffering. In fact his first plunge into sorrow after abandoning a significant defence comes about partly on the basis of his trust in the analyst. If we want to call this “support”, or rather a work in which such an element should not be considered “aspecific” but fundamental. But I prefer not to play with words, which are generally used with other meanings. What counts is the fact that an analyst can work on old feelings only if he is not afraid of his own old feelings and of the sorrow that is inevitable in human existence. There is no technique that can help an analyst to gain trust. Clients are closed, but not stupid and know if their “guide” is afraid or not. Therefore, in order to gain this trust an analyst must know his own sorrow, at least well enough so as to have no more fear of it, and to live with it by accepting it as a constitutive element of his existential path.

I shall speak of “closeness” to refer to the set of attitudes, behaviours and also emotions with which the analyst accompanies the client in his journey through old feelings. In a certain sense, it can be said that this all constitutes the analyst’s “support” for the client. However, the term “support” is often used to mean other things which, in my opinion, the analyst should not do (or wish to do). The term “support” has, in fact, a history of its own in psychotherapy and almost always, although not always refers to theoretical-clinical approaches that are very little compatible with those I speak of.

“Support” is often translated as the idea of “giving” something to a client who is considered in some way “deprived” or “injured” and therefore in need of help by way of compensation. If one believes that the analysis can be understood as a work of classification and an opportunity, for the client, to re-decide various aspects of his way of placing himself in relation to reality, any sort of “support” is uncalled for. From this point of view, one must agree with Downing’s lapidary statement: “The therapist does not try to become a “good parent”: he simply practises therapy” (1995, p.246). He repeatedly stresses that the aim of analysis is to facilitate the client’s internal process of elaboration.

The analytical experience of grief is not regressive, since it is managed with an adult’s resources. For a certain period, therefore, the client is “taken up” with the awareness and emotion of this aspect of his (past) life. He cries frequently over little things and often cries without any external stimuli because of the situation which is occupying his mind: “..... a process of grief is something different from the simple feeling of sadness sometimes experienced in a series of sessions. A process of grief is deeper and more complicated. It tends to occur more outside the sessions than during them” (Downing, 1995, p.322).

This period of grief does not proceed in a linear fashion, as it is interrupted by old or new defences. The analyst’s task is to keep the client on the rails, so that he can travel their whole length, avoiding sudden braking (splitting up), deviations (self-satisfaction and transforming sorrow into self-pity), “taming” (turning the sorrow into slight sadness), rebellions (displays of anger that wipe out the sense of impotence and loss), and so on.

When the period of grief has been gone through with sufficient transparency, the client experiences new feelings, that is, he experiences both deeper levels of joy when he is happy, and deeper levels of sorrow when he is sad. He is more involved in what he does, he avoids what are merely “pastimes”, he is less interested in superficial relationships and feels a deeper affection towards the people in his life. He does not easily get angry and in the face of frustrations manages to “take the blow” and to try to improve things rather than protesting or bearing a grudge.

In the phase following the work on grief, the greatest danger consists in a modified new edition of optimism, in that the client risks believing that the analysis has brought him to a point where he “is well”. It must, therefore, be emphasised that the sorrow does not finish with the analytical working through of the sorrow of early childhood. This old sorrow can to some extent return in new, very similar situations, but even if this does not happen, new situations can, as such, be sufficient occasion for sorrow. Even if things were to go well for many years, sooner or later there would be the experience of growing old and dying and leaving such a beautiful world. In this phase of the analysis, with the work on this “new optimism”, we construct what can avoid “relapses”: these are, in fact, almost inevitable when the client finds himself facing great misery after having believed “somewhere” that everything should always go well.

Accepting grief as a constituent aspect of existence is not, then, a luxury for analysts with philosophical leanings, but is the completion of the work which has for so long been generally considered an aim of psychotherapy: the examination of reality. Now, reality is what it is: one lives by experiencing wonderful and horrible things, then one dies. If one is not clear as to the fact that this is what human existence is, and that we have the resources to go through it without wavering, sooner or later one falls back on old defences. Defences are not, in fact, the thorns that the analyst removes, they are skills. They remain at the disposal of the person and can (more or less consciously) be reactivated at any time. In order for this not to happen, the person must have a deep and sincere conviction of his capacity to bear sorrow and to live a life that is, in any case, significant. Only on this condition will he never betray either himself or other people in order to save himself from an inevitably painful experience. I always consider Frank Capra’s film “Life is Wonderful” the most convincing treatise on this subject. An analyst should do the work of an ordinary second-class guardian angel, which is not encouraging rebellion against sorrow nor yet, persuading that the sorrow is not so bad after all, but showing that it can be faced up to, in order not to destroy the most precious things in life.

It should of course be made clear that tears in themselves serve for nothing. Crying when depressed gets one nowhere; crying for a tantrum or in order to make someone feel guilty only involves the body in a defensive action in relation to the expression of sorrow (and so of the tears of sorrow).

It would be interesting to understand why sorrow is expressed with tears and not in other ways, from birth and in different cultures and even in part of the animal world (Masson, 1995). The fact remains that only tears express adequately deep sorrow on a physiological level.

Tears can be inhibited in various ways. The most effective and radical way is not to come into contact with sorrow, by maintaining convictions, illusions, splits and so on in such a way as to allow the person not to experience sorrow. If, however, the person comes to feel sorrow, but does not give way to tears, he can interrupt the process by acting in certain ways: saying certain words, not saying others, avoiding certain actions (e.g. seeking physical contact), performing certain actions (e.g. diverting his attention by reading).

If the person gets as far as actually crying, he can stop the due physical expression of sorrow “downstream” rather than “upstream”. To this end, there are many sorts of muscular tension able to interrupt tears. Tensing the massater muscles is fundamental, but anyone holding back tears also contracts the muscles of the forehead, the nape of the neck, the neck, the throat, the diaphragm and almost the whole body. Pressure on certain muscles can produce an increased contraction and then a relaxation which makes it easier to cry. The deepest sorts of tension cannot, however, be eased either by appropriate movements or by external intervention; they can be relaxed only through vocalisation. Someone who already has tears in his eyes and no longer has his jaw set need only let a thin sound escape in order to liberate the sobs of tears.

While one is crying, the tears can , however, be repressed or halted. If the client is afraid of going too far, he can interrupt or shorten his wail (i.e. vocalise only in the first phase of expiration). In this case it is necessary to reassure the client as to his ability to maintain contact with this emotion and suggest that he let the sound out for the whole of the breath. In such a case the client produces deep sobs that involve the whole body from the head to the pelvis.

The Reichian idea that the muscle shield “functionally” constitutes a defence against orgasm is highly questionable. I believe it is a defence against tears. Anyone who can face up to tears can also enjoy sexuality, as “sexual problems” do not exist. What are identified as sexual problems and with much imagination treated “sex-ologically”, are symptoms, or rather dislocations in the sphere of sexual behaviour, of defensive actions against sorrow. Some people have trouble studying and no-one suggests they consult a “studyologist”. Sex-ology is in great demand because people want to be able to return to having sexual relations again in a technically correct way, but still maintaining their same lack of contact on an emotional level.

Crying causes relaxation throughout the body and deep breathing, and the wave of sobs that shakes the whole body proceeds in a way similar to that of orgasm, although it is not subjectively accompanied by sexual pleasure. Physical work on crying is the best contribution towards a good sex life, as it makes it possible both to overcome defences against sorrow and to ease many physical tensions which, if they become chronic, impede orgasm.

Sometimes tears are the result of a misunderstanding, as when clients “manage” to cry only during the session or with their wife or husband. They are prepared to reconnect with an old rejection only if held close by someone else. In reality, they misunderstand the meaning of present “closeness” and see it as a reparative event rather than as a token of understanding that an adult shows towards another adult who is crying over his own irreparable losses. In such cases the situation should be clarified if we do not want the client to go through the rest of his life crying pointlessly on someone else’s shoulder. 

7. Theoretical Bases of the Analytical Work

In the causal model certain events determine the “psychic disease” and certain “therapies” can “cure” it. In the intentional model people act to defend themselves or to face up to reality and if they act defensively they pay a certain price and can also reach the point of showing those coarser aspects of behaviour which are defined as “symptoms”. Analysis clarifies intentions and makes changes of decision possible with alternative results (fewer defences, more genuine sorrow .... and more contact, joy and bliss). In the former model, epistemologists must judge the etiological causal hypotheses and the causal hypotheses relative to therapeutic contributions. In the latter model, the problem of discussing the validity of etiological hypotheses and the efficacy of “therapeutic” procedures does not exist, and even the rage attached to clinical and non clinical tests becomes superfluous.

When the client solves a problem, he knows why he has solved it and knows what kind of work has helped him to modify his attitude and to abandon a given symptom. It never happens that after months on end of work on “fantasies”, “metaphors”, “associations” or dreams, or after a period of “relaxation” he realises he feels better without being aware of why.

The thoughts we have so far put forward on the theorisable and controllable aspects of an analytical path and on those aspects which are not contemplated in any precise way by theoretical assumptions, require a number of supplementary notes regarding the concept of empathy which is at the heart of many clinical discussions.

For the client to be ready to venture into emotional changes which are also existential, he needs to see the presence of the analyst as a person who recognises him as a person. It is necessary for him to feel understood in his need to delude himself, in his fear of giving in and in his ability to tolerate the change.

We can, therefore, consider empathy as an enabling condition for work on old feelings. However, it should not be reduced to an understanding and warm attitude which gratifies certain elementary needs of acceptance and respect in an analytical relationship. Moreover empathy must mean acceptance of the person, but not “ understanding for the defences”; it must be respect for resistance, but not collusion (as in “compassion” for defensive forms of suffering). The client wishes to have confirmation of his image and reassurance in his dream. Empathy means not recognising him at all in the oversimplified image he presents or disappointing him regarding his chances of fulfilling his illusions.

I believe, therefore it is appropriate to consider empathy as a more intense and cognitively complex action than a feeling of benevolent kindness. “Empathy ..... does not consist of simply being witness to the superficial aspects of what the patient communicates. It implies a process of absorbing oneself into his interior world (....). Given that cognition and emotion are inseparable, empathy is at the same time a cognitive and affective process” (Safran-Segal, 1990, p101).

8. Emotional Contact and Normality

In the previous pages I have tried to set out the reasons why I do not use the concepts of pathology and cure in psychotherapy. I would like to question the concept of normality, since the change which is achieved by working on defensive intentionality and on non integrated old feelings does not coincide with the “normality” that clients (and also some psychotherapists) are looking for.

Analytical work lets us become very familiar with more intense emotions than those which are “normally” felt and shared. Namely, it helps in regaining potentiality which was not given expression to just because of a life plan which was limiting and was fundamentally concerned with the avoidance of emotions classified (in early childhood) as unmanageable. Even if achieved in different ways by differing people, the change is, however, characterised by a greater intensity in emotive contact and by greater rationality and constructiveness in behaviour. By changing their attitude towards themselves and towards reality, clients sooner or later feel a sense of dissatisfaction for those social rituals they shared with many different people and they now find “false”, “disrespectful” or “superficial”.

People do not normally demonstrate deep feelings. Obviously they experience sorrow, desire and love “somewhere”, but they try not to realise it and not to let it be realised, so as not to seem too fragile or too dependent. In general people try to get others to do certain things, but they rarely ask plainly for what they want as they fear rejection in the same way they did when they were children. People often react angrily to frustrations or grief. In this way they do not change reality, but only their own contact with reality. In the same way they do not get angry or battle when there is need to battle, for fear of “exaggerating”. In the most wretched situations people do not know how to cry or do so out of self-pity or anger.

So we can assert that interpersonal relationships are regulated by a criterion which is shared “normally” and according to which it is necessary to avoid awareness of both sorrow and death. Sorrow and death obviously continue to be part of life, but we prefer to ignore this fact.

Nobody would recommend a psychotherapist to a person whose free time is completely occupied. However, when people who have begun analysis on account of “a symptom” start to talk of how they fill up their free time, they discover they are terrified of emptiness, silence and solitude. And they understand that many “convivial evenings with friends”, many “important meetings”, and also a frenetic search for love affairs only served so as not to have a moment’s “peace”. This leads us to think that normally sex, social life, commitment or even the anxiousness to have many “things to do” might conceal “normal terror”.

Pleasure and love only play a marginal and infrequent role in sexual behaviour, given that typical courting and falling in love and even internal tensions in couples all have as their basis the search for “security” or a dread of solitude.

Creativity and a sense of responsibility only play a marginal and infrequent role in the world of work, given that people commonly devote themselves to their work for totally different reasons: personal achievement, greed, the fear of being alone with oneself or a disinclination to spend too much time at home.

Curiosity and a desire to express personal talents to the best of one’s abilities only play a marginal and infrequent role in studying (both in academic studies and in intellectual research). People study to prove something, to get on, so as not to be judged ignorant or to feel themselves part of a group.

Now, however understandable these “needs” (of belonging, security, acceptance, denial of tensions or conflicts and so on) might be in children, they are not in adult life. Therefore we have to accept substantial continuity between “official” psychological disturbances, scheming attitudes in interpersonal relationships, superficiality in emotional life, a lack of empathy, incoherence of convictions, an expression of ethically questionable behaviour and adherence to reassuring conformity or rebellious tendencies.

Some people certainly feel worse than others as a result of their defensive strategy, but there is no clear dividing line between “normality” and “pathology”. A soldier fighting a war, the sense of which he does not understand, is considered normal, whilst a soldier who suffers from bad dreams after being discharged is considered to be suffering from a post traumatic disturbance. Presumably the “disturbance” is the expression of an unwillingness to accept a certain reality (internal as well as external), but an “absence of disturbances” can reflect emotive detachment with regard to reality. So-called psychological disturbances could be considered to be fundamentally “excesses of normality”.

I hope it is clear that I do not wish to take to task the optimistic ideologies of the 60s and 70s which considered dissent to be “liberating“ and potentially destructive. Instead I believe that dissent is in no way authentic dissent and that both serious and slight psychological disturbances are only the tip of an iceberg created by normality itself. I do not even wish to take to task the ravings of Reich and others which consist in a “condemnation“ of normality in the name of entreaties for political or “medical” or “natural” “liberation“. Politics cannot change people, medicine cannot cure them of non-existent diseases and nature has nothing to do with it. What I wish to express is not a “rejection” of normality, but rather disapproval of “clinical” dogmas according to which psychological disturbances should be set against “normal” social adjustment (which includes a normally irrational handling of the emotions, of time and of personal resources).

The polarity on which analysis acts is not that between normality and pathology, rather that between personal potentialities and defensive attitudes. The potentialities that analytical work can help to recover regard the acceptance of the reality (tragic but also exhilarating) of human existence, the ability to love and respect oneself and others, the determination to work through inevitable sorrow and to forestall sorrow that can be avoided; in this way joy and bliss are also experienced more intensely.

We are the solid but also fragile outcome of the many experiences we have had and we are also the creators of our opportunities in that we work through such experiences in a personal way. We can recognise and show our feelings, measure ourselves with others and commit ourselves to bettering both ourselves and society. We can live in a realistic, creative, constructive and loving way if we accept the inevitable sorrow. On the other hand, by rejecting sorrow we become insensitive to everything which borders on it and we prohibit ourselves from seeing the more delicate sensations, from understanding ourselves and our fellow human beings and from showing bursts of emotion.

The task of analysis is to help people to bear the burden of sorrow, of truth and of reality and to discover that it is not as it was in early childhood. The task of analysis is not that of getting people to “feel good”, but that of helping them to live to the full both sorrow and joy and to discover that their lives are inevitably both wonderful and awful, but that above all they are precious and can be spent with the aim of constructing rather than of not suffering.

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