ABSTRACT
Freud’s attitude to the compulsion to repeat changed over the years. At fi rst he was frustrated that patients repeated their history rather than remembering it, but in what I have always considered to be sign of his genius, he came to recognise that this repetition was precisely what made therapeutic change possible. Because of the compulsion to repeat, patients were able – indeed, they were compelled – to relive their experiences in the transference. This presented a new opportunity for understanding and change. As Freud put it: “We admit it [the compulsion to repeat] into the transference. … [And in this way] we regularly succeed in giving all the symptoms of the illness a new transference meaning and in replacing [the patient’s] ordinary neurosis by a ‘transference-neurosis’ of which he can be cured by the therapeutic work” (1914b, p. 154).
