ABSTRACT
Freud’s technical principle of working through is perhaps the most subtle—and existential—of all his principles of technique. In this chapter, I contrast Freud’s conception of this principle with Melanie Klein’s, which simply reduces it to the constant repetition of an interpretation over and over again until the patient comes to embrace it. This is a behavioral approach that relies heavily on willpower instead of a properly psychoanalytic approach that relies more on the passage of time. In Freud’ view, one cannot will oneself to obediently accept a new way of seeing things. This has to come in the patient’s own time, indirectly.
