Kenneth Lambert - Comparison of Psychoanalytic and Jungian Views on Resistence

Summary of the Psychoanalytic Development

"In psychoanalysis then, the development of the concept of resistance has proceeded in the following order:

1. Resistance is a defence against anticipated emotional discomfort expressed by a refusal of the method of freeassociation, a refusal of interpretations and adherence to ‘loving’ transference used as a defence against free associating and any serious consideration of the analyst's interpretations.

2. Resistance is mobilized as a defence against the loss of primary and secondary gains from illness and against any modifications of the power of id and superego.

3. Resistance uses the defences described by Anna Freud against interpretations feared as likely to disturb the status quo or the basic equilibrium of the patient.

4. Resistance is described by Glover in terms of methods employed by the patient defined as I. Crass resistance and 2. Unobtrusive resistance. The latter would also include the ‘head-resistance’ first described by Helen Deutsch.

5. Object relations theory and the work of Klein and Winnicott directs the study of resistance into analysis of the transference-countertransference in respect of the analyst resisted as a part-object and later a whole person.

6. Resistance is defined by Schafer as the patient's response not only to paternal but also maternal authority, as well as any activity of the analyst that might disturb the totality of the patient's personality. The analysis of the patient's resistance should give full recognition to its affirmative as well as its negative aspects.

7. Racker's study of resistance/counter-resistance brings out the importance of the analyst's counter-resistance in helping him to understand the resistance of the patient particularly when it operates as a support to inte-grative processes within the latter's personality as a whole.

8. Winnicott, indebted to both psychoanalysis and Kleinian psychology, has shown how different is the significance of resistance in the case of deeply regressed patients where the release and nurture of the true self is essential. At this point the paradox is that to resist the normal interpretative efforts of the analyst may indicate a real cooperation with him at the level that matters."

Summary of Jung's View of Resistance

"Jung's description of resistance is less full and differentiated than Freud's— not distinguishing defence and resistance and sometimes speaking of a continual mood of the latter as a life-style. Nevertheless we find him early in his development emphasizing resistance to the analyst as a person. This personal aspect pervades the whole of Jung, as does the tremendous importance of resistance and the need not to attempt to break down the resistance but rather respect it. His emphasis was that resistance is an indication that a faulty attitude or approach or view of the patient's problem is being held or made by the analyst. He also respected the patient's resistance to the transference when it was archetypally determined and felt to be overwhelming.

Jung, as is often the case, is strong where psychoanalysis has been slower and more fumbling—namely in terms of his emphasis upon the resistance as that of one person, the patient, to another, the analyst, and the need to respect and carefully analyse the homeostatic and other aspects of resistance. He is less strong in the detailed study of resistance in terms of method and content, that has been carried out by the psychoanalysts. On the other hand his emphasis upon the resistance of unconscious archetypal potentiality to analysis and consciousintegration represents a unique contribution to the subject." (pp. 177-178)
　

Kenneth Lambert (1976). Resistance and Counter-Resistance. Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol. 21, pp. 164-192