ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis originated in suggestion. When he first began practice, Freud used the power of suggestion to force his patients to recall the traumatic histories that his seduction theory needed them to have. When he discovered transference—one of the two legs on which suggestion stands—he advocated interpreting only those forms of it that led the patient to have negative feelings about the analyst. Transferences that produced positive feelings were to be left uninterpreted, so that they could form the basis of a far more subtle and powerful form of suggestion. The exploitation of positive transference is a manifestation of the analyst’s countertransference, which is the other leg on which suggestion stands. Practising suggestion forces the analyst into the position of what Lacan called “le sujet supposé savoir”, someone who is supposed to know the answers in order to provide them to the patient in the form of suggestions. This imperative has driven psychoanalysts into various forms of dogmatism. It remains an open question whether is it possible to overcome dogmatism and avoid suggestion in psychoanalysis.
