Resistance

When we hear the word “resistance”, we probably spontaneously think of political resistance first. We think of the resistance by individuals and groups who, based on certain moral and political convictions, speak out against a political regime or societal movement that exhibits strong totalitarian, authoritarian, or dehumanizing traits. Political resistance consists of the rejection of such a regime and the insistence on change.

When Freud talks about resistance, he is referring to something completely different. In Freud's thinking, resistance refers to all psychological forces that oppose change in a given situation, even if that situation is one of psychical and physical suffering. For Freud, this resistance is of crucial importance in clinical practice. After all, where there is resistance, something is being repressed, important memories, thoughts, and feelings are denied access, a facade remains intact, and true motives are concealed. If we were to apply this clinical insight to the realm of politics and society, we could say that Freud is primarily interested in the question of why there is so little political and societal resistance that demands change for the better, and why, on the contrary, there is so much resistance to change and so much insistence on maintaining a given political and social order, even when this order has an evident harmful and destructive impact. It is precisely this unraveling of the motives behind insistence, which is often neglected in concrete political resistance, that renders this resistance less effective. Seen in this light, Freud does—unintentionally—contribute to thinking political and societal resistance.

Herman Westerink is Endowed Professor and Associate Professor for philosophy of religion at the Center for Contemporary European Philosophy, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He did his PhD at the University of Groningen and wrote his professorial dissertation (Habilitation) at the University of Vienna. He has published many books and articles on Freudian psychoanalysis, sexuality, subjectivity and religion. Amongst others he published a monograph on Freud’s theories of the sense of guilt (2009), a monograph on and text editions of the first edition of Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (2016, 2021, with Philippe Van Haute). Also, he published a monograph on Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality (2019). Recently he published a monograph on Freud’s metaphysics of trauma (2022, with Philippe Van Haute). He is co-editor of the book series “Sigmund Freuds Werke: Wiener Interdisziplinäre Kommentare” (Vienna UP) and of the book series “Figures of the Unconscious” (Leuven University Press). He is member of the International Society for Psychoanalysis and Philosophy (ISPP/SIPP) and its Freud Research Group.