It is not a simple coincidence that so many major figures in psychoanalysis discuss the issue of unknown and unwritten. In his recent paper, Dr.A discusses that Wittgenstein suggests that “the unwritten is more important, which appears to
be the opposite of Freud’s preference in “talking cure”. I consider that this
type of silence is what can be called “silence out of owe”. We keep silence to
whatever is unknowable and untouchable. Our silence is to give it respect. Winnicott’s
notion of “incommunicado” is of this sort.
Then Dr.A relates to the issue of Freud’s avoidance of the topic of
dissociation. Freud’s avoidance of the topic of dissociation appear to be
paradoxically indicating to his great concern of what is unspeakable, an issue
so sensitive to him that he needed to use denial as a defense mechanism to keep
it at bay.
Freud’s vehement opposition and denial reminds me of that he showed to
Ferenczi when the latter tried to express his view in the paper “Confusion of Tongue”
which is quite reminiscent of what Freud was arguing more than 30 years ago
before his abandonment of seduction theory. While Freud believed in the trauma
histories of hysterical patients that he was treating, he suddenly began to
argue that these were products of fantasy that his patients were producing due
to their sexual own infantile sexuality.
What Dr.A’s article makes me wonder is whether it is deal with the
issue of trauma and dissociation without having a real understanding about what
the Freud-Ferenczi was about. Otherwise we are right on the track of Freud’s
tradition while accepting Frenczi’s idea that Freud was so much opposed to.
Then Dr.A discussed how much we are inclined to keep silence to what
is traumatic. Here we are dealing with another type of silence. Which is the
silence out of fear and pain. When something painful is there in our mind, we
also keep it.
What Dr.A is suggesting, I believe, that the
analyst’s mission is even more complex if we take into consideration the
traumatic view. A patient keeps silence and the analyst might feel that there
is something is going on. How do we know how to proceed? To not to ask what is
going on might be a way of giving respect to what is not mentioned, but we
might be colluding with the patient about not touching something out of fear.
To ask might be to bring out something that has been waiting to be open to the
day light, but it can be intrusive and damaging to something unmentioned so
far. This is exactly the good balance that we clinicians need to strike,
perhaps with the help of our clients.
