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SOURCES
But this also applies to decisions which are made over and
again. One may deplore an unfortunate decision; how ter-
rible it might be if we never made unfortunate decisions or
unfortunate interpretations. In analysis it is recovery from
the unfortunate decision, the use of the mistaken decision
that we have to accustom overselves to deal with. In this view
of the position there is no question of a cure.
It has been said that the English and Americans have
everything in common except the language. The same could
be said of the analyst and the analysand; the language is
apparently the one existing means of communication.
Nevertheless it is also the one thing which they do not appear
to have in common probably because they are talking from
different vertices. A mountain viewed from different points
of the compass may be recognizably the same mountain, but
it may be such a different view that it appears to be an
entirely different mountain. consider the patient who says
that he is seriously troubled by blushing, but to the view of
the analyst appears to be almost invariably marked by an
extreme pallor. Is it possible that the patient who rejects
blushing does so by inhibiting his blood flow in such a way
that he does anything but blush--the place of the blush is
taken by this great pallor? I do not suggest that this is
actually the case, but I think it is useful to be able to air these
`hunches' as a transitive statement on the way to an inter-
pretation. It is important to get used to this transitive
method of thinking with a view to arriving at an interpreta-
tion, which is also arriving at an immediately changing
situation; whether the interpretation is correct or incorrect,
fresh interpretations will have to be made in order to meet
that changed situation.
Suppose the patient does not want to lie on the couch and,
having taken his place on a chair, then displays considerable
restlessness and has to change to a different chair. This may
be the reaction to sensations generated in the autonomic
system, or from the stimulation by the cNS (in turn gener-
ated by the unpleasing sight of chair or couch). It could
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