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Chapter Seven – A Discussion – Page 228
anything out because, for some reason or other, it is unpleasant to tell it.
(1913/1958, p. 135).
Freud argues that this is something essential to psychoanalysis (in the sense that without
such a determination the work becomes impossible). Haley (1963) examines how there
are also paradoxical aspects to the invitation to say whatever comes into your mind,
because it is impossible to do so, and how the invitation is effectively an induction, an
example of the hypnotic ‘confusion technique’.
As researcher, I am interested that Bill offers an invitation as unclear as he does.
Subjectively and changing voice, I can recall anxiety going in to this and other sessions.
In this particular session, my anxiety was triggered partly by an absence of a clear
structure agreed between Judi and me and a generally difficult countertransference.
In applying the approach based on Freud’s in The Interpretation of Dreams
(1900/1953), I am seeking in what follows to construct interpretations that link together
the understanding of the events under study, particularly informed by consideration of
what is being unconsciously expressed and resolved.
Enactment
This is a second additional lens on the data. In this particular case, one way of seeing
what takes place is that it represents unconscious expression and resolution of crucial
issues during training. Hence, the fishhook is a symbol of a transferential enactment of
students towards staff, involving them as real people as well, and it is as if the group
need to idealise the staff, and then crucify (or otherwise impale) them, but then for them
to come back to life. This seems to be a group version of the dynamic Winnicott (1969)
noted, in relation to the use of a mental object by an infant in early development, that