Resistance cannot resist Resistance
In his endeavor to distance himself from the treatment of hypnosis, Freud encountered a force which made itself noticeable whenever he attempted to reach a pathogenic idea. In the Studies of Hysteria (1896), Freud writes with great excitement “[…] I had to overcome a resistance. This situation led me at once to the theory that by means of my psychical work I had to overcome a psychical force in the patients which was opposed to the pathogenic ideas becoming conscious (being remembered). A new understanding seemed to open before my eyes when it occurred to me that this must no doubt be the same psychical force [“psychische Kraft”] that had played a part in the generating of the hysterical symptom and had at that time prevented the pathogenic idea from becoming conscious. What kind of force could one suppose was operative here, and what motive could have put it into operation? […] The psychical trace of it was apparently lost to view. Nevertheless that trace must be there. If I endeavored to direct the patient’s attention to it, I became aware, in the form of resistance, of the same force as had shown itself in the form of repulsion when the symptom was generated.“[1]
Having realized that the same psychical force could create a symptom but also oppose it at the same time, enticed Freud to pursue these traces until he had found the kernel of resistance, the repressed incompatible or pathogenic idea, which, once he had located it, gave his patients the freedom to suffer less under their bodily symptoms.
At first, Freud was quite bold and invented the method of putting physical pressure upon his patients’ forehead: “I make use in the first instance of a small technical device. I inform the patient that, a moment later, I shall apply pressure to his forehead, and I assure him that, all the time the pressure lasts, he will see before him a recollection in the form of a picture or will have it in his thoughts in the form of an idea occurring to him; and I pledge him to communicate this picture or idea to me, whatever it may be.“[2] With time however, Freud became less physical and authoritarian and simply invited his patients to reveal all the thoughts that came to their mind, no matter how immoral or frightful they were. The pursuit of resistance as a formidable and often secretive force, remained a life-long quest for Freud. Throughout his work, resistance also assumed different shapes and manifestations, whether it concealed itself in the transference, in enactments or in the negative therapeutic reaction.
What has always intrigued me though, is the fact resistance means and embodies many meanings at the same time: for psychoanalysts, resistance is primarily associated with an obstruction to the analytic process, and for men and women having joined the Resistance in France during World War II, it represents a fight for liberation and a sign of immense courage. How can the word Resistance embroil such contradictory movements? We might find one explanation for this intriguing dilemma in the already cited text by Freud, On Psychotherapy of Hysteria, where he writes, „The patient’s ego had been approached by an idea which proved to be incompatible [“unverträglich”], which provoked on the part of the ego a repelling force [“Kraft der Abstoßung”] of which the purpose was a defence against this incompatible idea. This defence was in fact successful. The idea in question was forced out of consciousness and out of memory. The psychical trace of it was apparently lost to view.“[3]
When one looks at the latest mass demonstrations in Minnesota against Trump’s detestable immigration policies and the arrests of many innocent people and now even the death of two people, or the senseless killing of nearly 20.000 people in Iran who oppose the government, it becomes clear that movements of resistance grow out of a deep and abhorrent sense that a tremendous injustice has taken place to which one can no longer remain a passive and silent witness. One has to stand up and say “NO”, no matter what the consequences are for one’s own life. This devastating force that inhabits resistance, is, as Adam Phillips (2025) writes, “Resistance to tyranny, both internal and external […]. It has gradually come to be seen as the key to survival in an oppressive modern world”.[4] Freud’s radical pursuit of this powerful force of resistance contributed to the possibility that women were eventually freed from the tyranny of their sexual fantasies and anxieties in the 1900’s, leading them to come into view more prominently and to be heard more loudly. 130 years later, women are again at the forefront screaming loudly and fighting for their civil liberties in many religious and right-wing nations, be it in Iran, Afghanistan or even in the streets of Minnesota.
[1] Sigmund Freud, “Psychotherapy of Hysteria”, in: Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Studies on Hysteria (1895), Standard Edition 2, pp.253–305, p. 268f. (emphasis in the original).
[2] Ibid, p. 270 (emphasis JWB).
[3] Ibid, p.269 ( emphasis JWB).
[4] Adam Philips (2025), “On Resistance”, in: London Review of Books, Vol. 47, No. 14/15.
Jeanne Wolff Bernstein, Ph.D. is the past president, and supervising and personal analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC), San Francisco. She is on the faculty at PINC and at the NYU Post-Doctoral Program for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and at the Wiener Arbeitskreis für Psychoanalyse, Vienna. She was the 2008 Fulbright-Freud Visiting Scholar of Psychoanalysis at the Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna. She is a member and vice-president of the Board of the Wiener Arbeitskreis für Psychoanalyse and works now as a psychoanalyst in Vienna. She has published numerous articles on the interfaces between psychoanalysis, the visual arts and film. Her book, The Lure of the Gaze and the Past, Berlin, Alexander Verlag was published in 2025. With Daniela Finzi, she is the co-editor of Thoughts for the Times on Group and Masses (2025) and with Helga Klug and Daniela Kammerer she is the Co-editor of Neu Handeln und Denken (2024).
