Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/46

 300, H. VON HUG-HELLMUTH

Out of the resistance which expresses Itself in the form of unwiUingness to humiUate his family we can find a way of ex- planation concerning the negative transference, which is generally niuch more readily accepted than the idea of the positive trans- ference. Discussion about this latter, even when it is quite clearly recognised, demands special caution in formulating it, because at bottom the child is unwilling to exchange his own parents for any stranger, even when there is every good reason for so doing. In spite of this, however, the child's first attitude at the beginning of the treatment is generally a strong positive transference, owing to the fact that the analyst, by sympathetic and dispassionate listening, realizes the child's secret father — or mother — ideal. Of course he makes use of this attitude at once against his own family. This results in those intensely irritating remarks made by the child to his people, such as: 'Doctor said I need not do this or that', or, 'I must ask Doctor first about this'. The child takes for granted that the analyst by listening to his complaints in the treatment hour, is in agreement with him, and from this he builds up his phantasies and attributes to them the value of reality. Also the juvenile patient is continually ready to plot against his parents, and in this he relies upon the support of his analyst. The child, just like the grown-up, when at the height of his positive trans- ference, is unwilling to end the treatment.

The negative transference usually appears first in the form of a fear of being deceived. For everytliing they say, they demand oaths of secrecy, for their mistrust towards the analyst is the prod- uct both of unwillingness to lay themselves bare, and of the countless disappointments which even the most favourable home conditions provide for the child from his earliest years. This is also the reason why he anxiously and jealously watches the interviews between the analyst and his parents and tries to overhear them and shorten them.

We know what an important part is played in the child's psychic life by sexuality, and its observation, and by the diverting of this childish interest by the family circle. The child is accustomed to get very unsatisfactory answers from bis parents and other grown-up members of the family to the riddle of sex, and therefore he reacts in two ways to the straight-forward talk in the analysis about sexual matters. He feels more important, like a grown-up man, and tries hard to reward the analyst's frankness by greater friend-