Certainly – the question is whether seeking to identify with that which is demanded or pursued by the analysand represents a step towards something new2. Hoffman characterises his decision to do as his patient asks, and obtain some Valium for her as ‘consciously disidentifying with her father’ (Hoffman, 1994: 202). Yet by disidentifying, or rather counter-identifying, in this manner, does he merely step into the imaginary relating being presented by his client? His identification remains within his patient’s portrayal as he becomes powerfully identified with his patient in her childhood situation, while his patient takes up the role of the pressurising, blackmailing and coercive father. As Greenberg describes, Hoffman had already taken up a position where extra-analytic demands were brought into the analytic relationship, so it would be tricky to meet his patient’s demand with enquiry, interpretation or confrontation. Such situations raise the question of what position has the analyst already taken up or fallen into that the analysand would make such a demand, or expect it to be complied with?
Hoffman seems to limit himself by constructing a false dichotomy between the impersonal, technical and ritualistic on one hand, as opposed to the personal, ‘authentic’ and spontaneous on the other, as represented by his metaphor of ‘throwing out the book’. This seems an odd dichotomy bearing in mind how honest, attentive and personal analytic interpretations can be; while there is no lack of dishonesty, inauthenticity and impersonal behaviour in social and personal relationships. As elaborated below, concomitant with the distinction between dyadic or triadic relating, is the distinction not between ritual and spontaneity but rather, between analytic as opposed to non-analytic discourse.
Rather than stepping further into the portrayal, it would have been useful for Hoffman to step both towards it and alongside it and speak in a way that might allow the analysand to see this portrayal from a third position – to elaborate what this analysand was showing them both. As Felman comments,
The analyst’s effectiveness, however, does not spring from his intellectual strength – but – insists Lacan – from his position in the repetitive structure. By virtue of occupying the third position – that is, the locus of the unconscious of the subject as a place of substitution of letter for letter (of signifier for signifier) – the analyst, through transference, allows at once for a repetition of the trauma, and for a symbolic substitution, and thus effects the drama’s denouement (Felman, 1987: 43).
Interestingly, one of the most notable moments of Hoffman’s case is omitted from Greenberg’s paper. At the height of the drama, Hoffman’s analysand changes her mind and tries to stop the ‘phone call – to no avail. As Hoffman describes,
When the patient starts whispering while I am waiting for her doctor to come to the phone, ‘This is crazy, I could do this myself,’ I go through with the call. Why? Maybe it is a bit of playful tit for tat, as if to say, ‘You tortured me for a half hour, now it’s your turn.’ The aggression on my part borders on a frame violation, a piece of acting out, perhaps, retaliating for the patient’s challenges to the frame, challenges that may have carried particularly aggressive implications in light of Diane’s knowledge of my status as a candidate (1994: 211).