ABSTRACT
One of the most controversial contributions of Spotnitz to the psychoanalytic literature is the concept of the toxoid response, an extension of Winnicott’s notion of the therapeutic use of objective hate (1947), Reich’s character analysis (1933), and Jacobson’s timed expression of anger (1971). In his classic paper, “The Toxoid Response,” Spotnitz writes that “in cases of schizophrenia, psychotic depression and other severe disturbances, one encounters resistances, chiefly preverbal, that do not respond to objective interpretation. Their resolution is thwarted by toxic affects that have interfered with the patient’s maturation and functioning” (Spotnitz, 1976, p. 49). He compares this to the situation of a person who has a virus and does not respond to warmth, rest, and diet, but must be injected with a mild case of that virus itself so that he or she develops antibodies and becomes immunized against it. Likewise, according to Spotnitz, in treating patients who have been infected with an “emotional virus,” the psychoanalyst must “inject” them with a mild case of that virus in order to help them develop the emotional antibodies needed to immunize themselves against it.
