"CONSTRUCTIONS IN ANALYSIS"

Freud's "Constructions in Analysis" was written in 1937 and appeared in print at the end of the year. It appears that Freud wrote this technical article in response to criticisms of the interpretations offered by analysts to their patients. The article begins with the question of evaluating the "yes" and "no" of the patient in response to an interpretation and with a justification of a technique intended to take into account the defensive value of negation. The goal of analysis is to expose repressed elements and enable the person to experience reactions that are commensurate with their level of maturity and to restore a more accurate image of a forgotten past. To achieve this the analyst has recourse to various signs and indicators: fragmentary and distorted memories that arise in dreams, ideas alluding to repressed elements, and the repetition in transference of repressed affects. Analysis proceeds on two levels—manifest and latent.

The analyst's job is to use the indications provided by the patient to construct what has been forgotten and communicate it at an opportune moment. Unlike the work of the archeologist, psychoanalysis benefits from the fact that mental formations are not completely destroyed; however, the work of interpretation is more complex and preliminary since it also relies on the motivations of the analyst.

Construction covers an entire period of the analysand's forgotten prehistory, while interpretation involves only a particular aspect of the analytic material. But how can its validity be evaluated? An incorrect construction, if it is isolated, does not cause any damage or provoke a reaction from the patient. The risk of suggestion is negligible however. The patient's reactions to a construction are important indicators. The "yes" is equivocal and only has value when additional confirmation becomes available. The "no" only informs us about the incomplete nature of the construction. Indirect modes of response such as "I never thought of that" indicate that the analyst has touched an unconscious idea and are more reliable, but these are more a question of interpretation than construction. Equally valuable are the associations and parapraxes that corroborate the construction; as is the case with a negative therapeutic reaction, a correct construction results in an aggravation of the clinical state.

However, constructions are only suppositions that await confirmation. When the construction is correct the patient will have a sense of conviction; even though the memory may not have been recalled, the construction will have the same therapeutic effect. Occasionally, a construction leads to very clear memories in the vicinity of what was constructed. Defensive displacement contributes to the quasi-hallucinatory quality of such recollections.

Based on the foregoing, it is possible that even in psychosis hallucinations are a return of forgotten events (seen or heard) from the first years of life, which have been distorted or subjected to other forms of defensive activity such as displacement. Thus, the upward pressure during psychosis would involve both desire and the repressed, distorted as in dreams. Delusions would also be constructions containing "a kernel of historical truth," denied originally and drawing their strength of conviction from their infantile source. The analysand, like the hysterical patient, suffers from reminiscences. Basically, the compelling force of the analyst's construction is similar to the delusion: the restoration of a piece of lived history. More generally, humanity's beliefs are inaccessible to criticism since they contain an element of historical truth concerning a forgotten primitive past.

Although considered a technical article, Freud's essay later helped elevate the term "construction" to the rank of a psychoanalytic concept. The emphasis is on repetition and the relationship between conviction and historical truth. Memory traces become more important than desire or fantasy, which leads to rich possibilities for the treatment of psychotic delirium. A dialectic process can be identified between the rediscovered past and the construction as a creation associated with the treatment.

Christian Seulin

See also: Construction de l'espace analytique, La (Constructing the analytical space); Construction/reconstruction; "From the History of an Infantile Neurosis" (Wolf Man); Historical reality; Interpretation.

Source Citation

Freud, Sigmund. (1937d). Konstruktionen in der Analyse. Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 23: 459-469; G.W., 16: 43-56; Constructions in analysis. SE,23:257-269.

Bibliography

Fédida, Pierre. (1978). L'identité. L'économie du théorique. Autour du texte sur "les constructions dans l'analyse." Psychanalyse à l'Université, 3 (11), 437-444.

Katan, Maurits. (1969). The link between Freud's work on aphasia, fetishism and constructions in analysis. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 50 (4), 547-553.

Kofman, Sarah. (1983). Un métier impossible. Lecture de construction en analyse. Paris: Galilée.

Pasche, Francis. (1988). Travail de construction ou, si l'on préfère, de reconstruction, S. Freud, in Third Symposium of the European Federation of Psychoanalysis, Stockholm, 1988, on "Construction and Reconstruction."Bulletin de la Fédération européenne de psychanalyse, 31, 19-31.

Viderman, Serge. (1970). La construction de l 'espace analytique. Paris: Denoël.