ANTICIPATORY IDEAS

The term Erwartungsvorstellungen is generally translated as "anticipatory ideas," although this term does not reflect "Erwartung "'s connotations of waiting, expectancy, or hope. It refers to the hypotheses that the analyst communicates to the patient to incite him or her to pursue in greater depth the interpretation of unconscious content; in this sense, the term is sometimes accompanied by the qualifying adjective conscious.

In 1901, in his analysis of the dream-work, Freud invoked this notion when he proposed that secondary revision operates upon the contents of a dream just as it does upon any other content, by apprehending it via anticipatory ideas. But in 1909, this idea assumed its proper place in interpretive analytic work and refuted the accusation of suggestion that was beginning to be made about the method. In "Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy," Freud wrote: "In a psycho-analysis the physician always gives his patient (sometimes to a greater and sometimes to a lesser extent) the conscious anticipatory ideas by the help of which he is put in a position to recognize and to grasp the unconscious material. For there are some patients who need more of such assistance and some who need less; but there are none who get through without some of it" (1909b, p. 104).

The following year, in "The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy," Freud further explained: "The mechanism of our assistance is easy to understand: we give the patient the conscious anticipatory idea [the idea of what he may expect to find] and he then finds the repressed unconscious idea in himself on the basis of its similarity to the anticipatory one. This is the intellectual help which makes it easier for him to overcome the resistances between conscious and unconscious" (1910d, pp. 141-142). In "The Dynamics of Transference," Freud emphasized the hope that characterizes anticipation or waiting: "If someone's need for love is not entirely satisfied by reality, he is bound to approach every new person whom he meets with libidinal anticipatory ideas. . . . th[e] transference has precisely been set up not only by the conscious anticipatory ideas but also by those that have been held back or are unconscious" (1912b, p. 100).

Freud's last mention of this notion is found in two passages of his Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1916-1917a [1915-1917]). First, in the lecture "Transference," where he emphasized the participation of intelligence in the process of becoming aware, Freud wrote: "There is no doubt that it is easier for the patient's intelligence to recognize the resistance and to find the translation corresponding to what is repressed if we have previously given him the appropriate anticipatory ideas. If I say to you: 'Look up at the sky! There's a balloon there!' you will discover it much more easily than if I simply tell you to look up. . . . In the same way, a student who is looking through a microscope for the first time is instructed by his teacher as to what he will see; otherwise he does not see it at all, though it is there and visible" (p. 437). Thus, the mechanism of suggestion is clearly involved in guiding patients. However, in the next lecture, "Analytic Therapy," Freud emphasized the difference between this technique and suggestion: "After all, his conflicts will only be successfully solved and his resistances overcome if the anticipatory ideas he is given tally with what is real in him. Whatever in the doctor's conjectures is inaccurate drops out in the course of the analysis; it has to be withdrawn and replaced by something more correct" (p. 452).

The necessity for anticipatory ideas to be appropriate to the patient's reality was underscored by Ferenczi in his paper "On Forced Phantasies" (1924): "When we interpret the patient's free associations, and that we do countless times in every analytical hour, we continually deflect his associations and rouse in him expected ideas, we smooth the way so that the connections between his thoughts so far as their content is concerned are, therefore, to a high degree active. . . . The difference between this and the ordinary suggestion simply consists in this, that we do not deem the interpretations we offer to be irrefutable utterances, but regard their validity to be dependednt on whether thay can be verified by material brought forward from memory or by means of repetition of earlier situations" (pp. 71-72).

Although the notion of anticipatory ideas did not reappear in Freud's later writings, the idea of constructions was closely dependent upon it. In "Constructions in Analysis," he wrote: "The analyst finishes a piece of construction and communicates it to the subject of the analysis so that it may work upon him; he then constructs a further piece out of the fresh material pouring in upon him [and] deals with is [sic ] in the same way" (1937d, p. 260), adding, "We do not pretend that an individual construction is anything more than a conjecture which awaits examination, confirmation or rejection" (p. 265).

Thus, there were many safeguards against the excesses of analysts who were overly sure of the absolute accuracy of their interpretations. The dynamic relationship between analyst and patient that Freud highlighted here is that of a jointly undertaken search that, to be sure, presupposes a "historical truth" to be discovered, but with the reminder that this investigation is based on approximations whose limits are sometimes impossible to go beyond and must thus be accepted. It is this idea that Serge Viderman carried to its logical conclusion in his work on the "construction of the analytic space" (1970).

Alain de Mijolla

See also: "Constructions in Analysis "; Idea/representation; Interpretation.

Bibliography

Ferenczi, Sándor (1960). On forced phantasies: Activity in the association-technique." In his Further contributions to the theory and technique of psycho-analysis. London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1924)

Freud, Sigmund. (1901a). On dreams. SE, 5: 629-685.

——. (1909b). Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy. SE, 10: 1-149.

——. (1910d). The future prospects of psycho-analytic therapy. SE, 11: 139-151.

——. (1912b). The dynamics of transference. SE, 12: 97-108.

——. (1916-1917a [1915-1917]). Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis. SE, 15-16: 1-463.

——. (1937d). Constructions in analysis. SE, 23: 255-269.

Viderman, Serge. (1970). La Construction de l'espace analytique. Paris: Denoël.