The Persistence of Layering Logic

Abstract

Even those who reject drive theory have had their thinking shaped by its conception of walled-off content. This inevitably generates a one-person psychology, despite the belief that working from a two-person psychology is a matter of choice. Drive logic, with its conception of fixed layers, is so intuitively compelling that it has obscured the way the (misnamed) structural theory conclusively invalidated it by conceiving of defense and defended-against as reversible, even as “in motion.” The revision requires a continuing differential diagnosis to determine what is defense and what is defended-against at any given time, one that rests on the patient's response and therefore is, of necessity, a two-person psychology.

My argument proceeds from early vignettes, followed by two contemporary case reports that can demonstrate the unrecognized continuing influence of layering logic in the understanding of dynamics and in inviting unyielding reliance on an interpretation, despite a patient's protests, the sine qua non of one-person analysis.

Keywords:

• defense
• psychoanalysis
• unconscious
• ego
• interpretation
• interpersonal
• insight