ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the repetition compulsion to be a particularly unyielding type of resistance that arises from the patient's hatred and intolerance of anything new. Sigmund Freud's attitude to the compulsion to repeat changed over the years. Freud describes how the decisive thing remains that the resistance prevents any change from taking place- that everything stays as it was. Freud gradually realized that the compulsion to repeat was also an expression of resistance to change, and he came to consider that the analysis of resistance was a central task for the analyst. Later he became convinced that the resistance to change was particularly unyielding in certain patients who seemed senselessly to persist in seeking outcomes that led only to unhappiness and suffering. The resistance to change in the repetition compulsion may arise because of a hatred and intolerance of the link created in the analysis between the analyst and the patient.
