Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Übertragung (I)

[Note:   Tonight  we begin a saga, surreptitiously extracted from the Freud Archives, and "transcribed in Hollywood":   a tale, 'twill make thine each particular hair to stand on end,
like quills .... upon the fretful bandersnatch...]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Übertragung  (‘Transference’)

 
… the “transference neurosis”, described by Freud as an artificial illness that the analysis itself  brings into being…
-- Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis:  The Impossible Profession (1981)

… the contrapuntal nature of the psychoanalytic relationship …
-- Leo Stone, The Psychoanalytic Situation (1961), p. 33


Dramatis personae

A:  the therapist, Dr. S. Freud, of Vienna.
B: the analysand, “Mister Miller” -- an extremely neurotic Englishman of uncertain occupation.

[Scene:  The Berggasse, Vienna.  A quiet consulting-room.  The lighting is low;  the patient is recumbent, upon the classic couch.]

A:  So-o … You have perhaps a dream for me today?
B: [silence]
A: …. ?   ….. Mm?
B: [stubborn silence]
A:  Come come -- even a little one.
B: [abruptly shakes his head.]
A [sighing, and picking up a magazine]:  Well then, we shall simply bide our time  until you remember.

[Five, ten, fifteen minutes pass.  Finally the analysand -- irked, perhaps, by the riffling of pages -- can stand it no longer.]
B:  I … dreamt … -- There is a room.
A (maintains his silence;  the riffling of pages rather insolently continues)
B And a man
A (lowers the magazine, contemplates this, then ventures):  And … I  … take it, that, this… “man”…. as you call him,  is … in ... what you are pleased to call the “room” …
B [tightens his lips, gives a curt nod, in bitter signal of assent]
A [relaxing]: Ah-h-hh…. “Now we can begin” …

[minutes pass]

A:  So … What associations occur to you, about this … ‘room’ …
B [getting interested, despite himself]:  It’s a … hotel room.
A:  Ah!  And the name of the hotel?
B:  “The Continental”.  In … Prague.
[Now it is A’s turn  to be taken aback.
Finally he stammers--]   Go
on ….

B:  It is a bare room,
a spare room,
on an upper storey.
From outside the curtained windows,
confusion and alarums.
The Great War   was at a tipping-point;
it was uncertain, who would win …

A (nodding judiciously):  Just … so.  -- And the “man” ??
B (frowning;  delays, then proceeds):  It was … a woman, actually.
Only  dressed as a man
A: ??? !!!
B:  No rather -- She was dressed (I imagine) as a woman, beneath it all;  but she wore a man’s old macintosh, and a battered fedora.   -- Plus the gun -- no ladies’ toy, but a big   black   Luger …
A (says nothing, but nods as though bidding the patient to proceed -- a gesture lost, however, on the analysand, since, in orthodox Freudian fashion,  the analyst is sitting -- crouching -- safely behind, and out of sight, of the patient’s couch …)
B (dreamily):  Exactly the way she was the last time I’d seen her … that night in Singapore …
A (cleans his glasses, checks his timepiece; then rises, a sign that today’s session is at an end.)
Nun ja -- Ich muß mich mit der Deutung dieses Traumes noch weiter beschäftigen.  Also bis nächstes Mal…”
~
Was für Krimi liest wohl Dr. Sigmund Freud?
Schauen Sie mal!
~

[Continued here.]

No comments:

Post a Comment