Gerhardt, J. and Stinson, C. (1995) - "I Don't Know" Resistance or Groping For Words The Construction of Analytic Subjectivity.

(1995).
Psychoanalytic Dialogues 5: 619-672
I don't know: Resistance or Groping for Words?: The Construction of Analytic

Subjectivity
Julie Gerhardt, Ph.D. and Charles Stinson, M.D.
In poststructuralist thought, in particular ethnographically oriented studies of culture, language, action, or text, context
has become an indispensable concept as a way of challenging the claims of an autonomous meaning-making subject
with the corresponding depiction of the mind as an encapsulated formal representational system that can be detached
from the various strata of social organization. Instead, context is recognized as providing a frame of interpretation for
the production of meaning in terms of which events embedded within the frame must be understood. In psychoanalytic
theorizing, the recent shift from a one-person to a two-person paradigm can similarly be characterized in terms of an
appeal to context. Whereas invocations of the relevance of context in determining the patient's subjective experience in
the analytically based process typically lead to a concern with the therapist's subjectivity or countertransference, thus
promoting the view of the clinical process in terms of the mutually reciprocal influence of the patient and therapist, in
contrast, the present paper focuses on another
The research on which this paper is based was, in part, supported by The Program on Conscious and Unconscious Mental Processes directed by Mardi
Horowitz, M.D. and Charles Stinson, M.D. and funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The authors would like to thank Susan
Ervin-Tripp, Jiansheng Guo, and especially Nathan Adler for insightful, typically contentious, comments on the manuscript. Also, many thanks to Nathan
Adler, Luca Di Donna, Stephen Schultz, and Marc Zussman for the many discussions of psychoanalytic theory and therapy.
Julie Gerhardt is Associate Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. She is also a member of the Northern
California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology.
Charles Stinson is Codirector of the Program on Conscious and Unconscious Mental Processes of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's
Program on Mental Health and Human Development. He is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.
1995 The Analytic Press
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dimension of the context in analytically based work, namely, the particular set of the theoretical assumptions that
constitute the therapist's professionally grounded preconceptions about the nature of psychological distress. It is argued
that these assumptions function as demand characteristics in that they structure the therapist's mode of intervention
and thus, ultimately, how the therapeutic work is carried out. In particular, the argument is made that these demand
characteristics play a role in bringing about a self-reflexive stance on the patient's part in which one part of the self
observes and reflects on other parts of the self (thoughts, feelings, fantasies, etc.) and begins to cultivate the skills of
self-expression and self-formulation as the key to understanding personal distress. We refer to this self-reflexive stance
as one of analytic subjectivity and raise the question of how such attention to the self is brought about. Then, after
having characterized this aspect of the contextual frame, in the second part of this paper we go on to examine a
particular event that occurs within the frame. Specifically, we examine a patient's use of the discourse marker i don't
know from the transcripts of a psychotherapy study and suggest that its use can be understood in terms of the
context-driven agenda of having the patient self-inspect and self-reflect.
Part I
This paper builds on an assumption about the nature of psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy as a mode of therapy that
is organized in terms of the exploration of the patient's subjectivityand the fostering of what we call analytic subjectivity.
The primary agenda consists in the mutual attempt by the therapist and the patient to understand the patient's subjective reality.
Although, given the current Zeitgeist, this agenda tends to be carried out with reference to various interpretive codes (Pine, 1990),
according to Loewald (1971), there is one particular assumption that is fundamental, that underlies all modes of psychoanalytic
interpretation: in short, that whatever transpires is personally motivatedan assumption that directs the interpretation of the
patient's associative material in terms of its personal meaning content. Although there is a tendency in the psychoanalytic
tradition to attempt to discover meanings that are not conscious to the patient, subjective meanings include both unconscious
fantasies and conscious/experiential meanings and the interplay between them.
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Now, with this agenda in mind, the point we wish to make here is that in order to succeed, a particular stance on the patient's
part must be brought about: namely, the patient must adopt a self-reflexive stance in which one part of the self comes to observe
and reflect on other parts of the self. Indeed, the crucial feature of analytic work, and thus of analytic subjectivity, is its
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reflexivity; the object of scrutiny is one's self. Given this claim, the issue to be addressed is the following: How does the patient in
a psychodynamic psychotherapy come to be constituted as an analytic subject who participates in the psychodynamic project, that
is, the self-reflexive quest for personal meanings? In other words, how does the patient come to scrutinize his or her self in order
to discover problematic emotional material and construct new understandings of it? Based on the assumption that such a stance is
a cultural invention and not a biological given and has come about through an array of historically based social practices such as
those documented in Foucault's (1977, 1979, 1985, 1986) account of the cultivation of the self, the question raised is how in
any particular contextsuch as psychodynamic therapyattention to the self is brought about.1
To address this issue requires that we abandon the blank-screen model of the psychodynamic encounter in favor of a more
contextually sensitive, interactive model: a social-constructivist model, in Hoffman's (1991) terms. That is, it can no longer be
maintained that the therapeutic environmentneither as it has come about as a historically situated cultural institution, nor as it is
realized in the moment-to-moment interaction between therapist and patientfunctions as a neutral context in which the therapist
merely reflects back the patient's own conflicts expressed in the form of transferences (Gill, 1982; Hoffman, 1983, 1991, 1992;
Stolorow, Brandschaft, and Atwood, 1987; Mitchell, 1992; Stern, 1992; Tansey, 1992). In response to the traditional view, it is
important to make clear that the therapeutic environment functions as a unique type of socially organized, interpersonal encounter
that is determined by the interplay of various contextual factors. Invocations of the relevance of context have led to a concern
with, among other factors, the therapist's experience of the
1 To be sure, this is an old construction in Western cultureat least as old as the Socratic injunction to know thyself. Foucault's three volumes in The History
of Sexuality: I: Introduction (1979), II: The Use of Pleasure (1985), and III: The Care of the Self (1986) present a historical account of the practices that have
given rise to this self-investigative turn in the West.
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patientincluding the therapist's inevitable countertransference enactmentsas a major determinant of the patient's subjective
experience and thus, ultimately, of the transference (P. Heimann, 1950; Jacobs, 1986; Aron, 1991; Renik, 1993). However,
though the impact of the therapist on the patient's subjective experience has now been sanctioned by theory and is thus
acknowledged as a matter of course, according to Hoffman's (1992) rather disquieting pronouncements, the nature of this impact
must remain indeterminate. In other words, the heretofore incontrovertible assumption that the therapist has privileged access
into the meanings of her own actions has been radically undermined by Hoffman's insistence that just as the analyst may see
something in the patient that the patient resists, the patient may see something, consciously or unconsciously, that the analyst
resists (p. 291). The point is that even the private sanctum of the therapist's self-knowledgethe erstwhile bastion of Cartesian
certaintyis being positioned and relativized with respect to context.
Here, however, we shall focus on another dimension of the psychodynamic context that also plays a role in organizing the
therapeutic interaction: namely, the particular set of analytically based theoretical assumptions2 that constitute the therapist's
professionally grounded preconceptions about the nature of psychological distress. Our claim is that such preconceptions play a
role in structuring the therapist's particular mode of intervention, which contributes to the establishment of an analytic frame so
that these interventions ultimately play a role in organizing the patient's experience and mode of participation in the therapy. We
conceive of these preconceptions as demand characteristics of an analytically based therapy in that they determine how the
therapeutic work is to be carried out. For example, the therapist's belief in the role of the unconscious in bringing about
psychological distress guides the therapist to intervene in such a way that will induce the patient to go beyond her initial
consciously formulated account to consider alternate, possibly disavowed, meanings. From this perspective, even the standard
exploratory interventionsWhat comes to
2 The assumptions to be articulated are claimed to hold for psychoanalysis or psychoanalytically based psychotherapy, but not necessarily for less
insight-oriented modes of therapy. We assume that the therapist picks up these assumptions as part of her professional training and that they function as
background conditions (Searle, 1983; Dreyfus, 1991) in that they are never made entirely explicit, nor are they represented as such but function as enabling
conditions of analytic work.
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mind? or Do you have any thoughts or feelings about that?as well as the more individually fashioned interpretive
interventions based on personal meaningsare not innocent probes or mirrors, as the scientism in the field would have it. Rather,
such interventions need to be viewed as analytic techniques that let the patient know what is expected of her and thus function to
bring about the patient's stance of self-inspection and self-investigation. Put more generally, such interventions need to be viewed
as modes of discursive production in Foucault's (1972, 1979) sense whose effect is to establish a particular stance on the patient's
part, that is, a particular mode of self-scrutiny (which we are calling analytic subjectivity) that is embodied in a particular mode
of discourse.
Elsewhere (Gerhardt and Stinson, 1994), it was suggested that the mode of discourse to which the psychodynamic encounter
gives rise is a form of account-giving, specifically, accounts of the self. This proposal was intended as a further development
of the claim that the life-history material that emerges in psychotherapy is narrative in nature (Spence, 1982, 1987; Schafer, 1980,
1992). Our point was that, even if we accept the idea of the irreducibly narrative character of patient talk as a way of
acknowledging its problematic relation to historical truth (Spence, 1982), the inclusion of this mode of discourse in the genre of
narration does not do justice to the unique type of intention that organizes the communication in this context. Instead, based on
Loewald's (1971) claim about the centrality of personal motivation as an interpretive principle in analytic therapy, the argument
was made that in virtue of this very distinct, theoretically based interpretive biaswhich tends to portray psychic distress as the
outcome of predominantly endogenous factors (see Greenberg, 1991, for a critique)over time, material of a specific sort will
tend to be produced, material that in some way references the self. As such, a distinct mode of talk develops that revolves around
self-expression, self-evaluation, and self-assessment such that, even if narrative material is introduced, it functions as part of a
self-account, often as a mode of illustration.
In contrast, in this paper we focus on a different dimension of the therapeutic encounter, namely, the construction of analytic
subjectivity. As noted earlier, by analytic subjectivity we mean the patient's coming to adopt a self-inspecting stance in which
she begins
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to examine her own thoughts, feelings, and actions and begins to cultivate the skills of self-expression and self-formulation as the
key to understanding personal distress and, ultimately, as a means of becoming more of a self-regulating individual. As a caveat,
it should be made clear that our intent here is not to evaluate the merits of this self-reflexive/self-investigative turn as a mode of
therapy since this issue has received its polemical due in other quarters (Masson, 1988). Rather, our point here is to argue that the
analytic/self-reflexive stance is not an ontological given and thus must be cultivated through an array of techniques that
characterize the psychoanalytically based encounter. In other words, the stance of analytic subjectivity needs to be viewed as an
effect of, among other historically grounded cultural factors, the analytic context.
To address the problem of the construction of analytic subjectivity fully would require a head-on analysis of the therapeutic
context as a determining context in its own right and would include both the distal and the proximate context in Schegloff's
(1992) sense, that is, both (i) the role of therapy as a historically grounded institution within which therapeutic interaction occurs
and about which members have constructed a set of ideological beliefs about its efficacy as a mental health service (Foucault,
1965, 1973, 1977; Reiff, 1966; Masson, 1988; R. Lakoff, 1990; Oremland, 1991; Wakefield, 1992), and (ii) the role of the local
interactional context (e.g., the therapist's interventions) in bringing about a particular mode of participation on the patient's part.
For example, it might be shown how the seemingly neutral intervention Tell me what you were thinking and feeling after a
patient's account functions strategically as a means of creating an interactively grounded associative space for the patient to get in
touch with any associated thought and feeling content. As such, the metamessage conveyed is that there is more to the story than
meets the eye and that this latent material may bear on the patient's puzzlement or distress. The point is that even such a
seemingly benign intervention as this needs to be conceived as a particular technique of the self in Foucault's (1986) sense,
since it draws the patient into an actively self-inspecting stance and shapes the patient's understanding of his or her distress as a
problem of the self. Indeed, according to certain feminist theorists (Chesler, 1972; Ehrenreich and English, 1979; Bernheimer
and Kahane, 1985; Davis, 1986; R. Lakoff, 1990), analytically based
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psychotherapy goes too far in individualizing and personalizing problems that are the result of certain historically based
situational factors, including the institution of psychoanalysis itself.
In this paper, however, rather than focus on the determining role of the therapist's interventions per se, we take a step back
and consider a set of four assumptions that, we claim, are inherent to the psychoanalytically based enterprise and, as such, provide
part of the rationale for the interventions themselves. As noted above, these assumptions function as demand characteristics in
the therapeutic context in that they play a formative role in structuring the therapist's distinct mode of intervention as well as the
patient's response.
Then, after presenting these assumptions in Part I, in Part II we will isolate a feature of a particular patient's discourse from
a single case psychotherapy study and attempt to show how this feature plays a reciprocal role in helping to carry out the
therapeutic task as defined by these assumptions. Specifically, we will focus on the patient's use of a particular linguistic
devicethe response marker i don't knowand suggest that its seemingly refractory appearance notwithstanding, it functions as
part of the patient's involvement in the reflexive task of self-investigationwhat we are calling analytic subjectivity. In other
words, the patient's use of i don't know functions as a means of responding to and wrestling with the demand characteristics in
terms of which analytic subjectivity is brought about.
There are two reasons for focusing on the use of the response marker i don't know. First, our empirical findings reveal,
somewhat surprisingly, that i don't know tends to occur at moments of elaboration and self-disclosure3 on the patient's part
(Stinson et al., in prep.). That is, either before or after the production of i don't know, the patient tends to disclose new,
emotionally significant material. Though at this point, our data derive from a detailed inspection of only a single case,
preliminary investigation of a second case supports our findings. This paradoxical coupling of, as it were, denial and
confession is most interesting and leads us to the second reason for investigating this marker which is that from both a linguistic
pragmatic and psychodynamic perspective, this finding makes postdictive sense. That is, if we consider the occurrence of i don't
know as a trace or fingerprint of
3 By self-disclosure we mean the revealing of subjective material: thoughts, feelings, perceptions, intentions, and fantasies (Stiles, 1992).
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the unconscious in Adler's (1992a, 1992b) sense, then its occurrence at such clinically significant moments is to be expected. To
elucidate this idea, let us briefly examine both of these perspectives in turn.
First, linguistics has conventionally been divided into three branches of inquiry: syntax, which is the study of the formal
relation of signs to one another; semantics, the study of the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable;
and pragmatics, the study of the relation of signs to interpreters (Morris, 1938; see also Levinson, 1983). Or, in more
contemporary terms, whereas semantics focuses on the relation between linguistic forms and the meanings they encode,
pragmatics is the study of the relation between forms and their contexts of use, specifically, the contextual meanings that arise as
forms are produced/interpreted within particular contexts. The point of departure for pragmatics consists of a sustained critique
against traditional linguistics, which rests on a theoretical perspective giving analytic primacy to the isolated, decontextualized
sentence. Syntactic and semantic relations are studied independent of the discourse or intersubjective contexts in which they
occur. In contrast, the field of pragmatics takes the situatedness of language as primary, and thus the focus of analysis consists of
the way forms work and are given meaning through a process of situated interpretation in particular contexts of usewhere
context includes, among other factors, the identity and roles of the participants; the physical, behavioral, and institutional
environment; and, talk itself as it provides the contextualizing medium for other talk.
The classic linguistic exampleCan you pass the salt?illustrates the very common case where semantic meaning and
pragmatic meaning diverge due to the situational context: semantically, the utterance expresses a request for information about
the hearer's ability to pass the salt, while pragmatically, when uttered in a prandial context, the question is intended/interpreted as
a request for action on the hearer's part. For another example that demonstrates the effects of the linguistic context, the
temporal meaning of the connective since glossed as after (in I have done quite a bit of writing since we last met) receives a
causal interpretation in contexts permitting the inference of a lower temporal boundary between the two clauses (Since Susan
left him, John has been very miserable; examples from Traugott and Konig, 1991). The point is that the problem confronted in
pragmatics
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concerns the relation between particular linguistic constructions and their contexts of use.
Moreover, as linguistic research informs us, certain classes of forms serve as signals of contextual presuppositions more than
others. In the above example, the use of can in Can you pass the salt? can be considered a grammatical reflex of the indirect
speech act conveyed (the request for action by means of a request for information). The use of a modal like can draws attention
to the systematic nature of the inferences involved (Searle, 1976). In short, for a request to be felicitous (successful) the
respondent must be thought able to comply with the request; thus, the respondent's ability (encoded by can) is considered a
felicity condition on the speech act of requesting. According to Gordon and Lakoff (1971) by questioning a felicity condition of a
speech actfor example, questioning whether the respondent has the ability to perform the actthe speaker can communicate
her desire for the act, plus her desire to be indirect. Such indirectness provides the recipient with a way out should she choose not
to comply while allowing her to preserve her facewhich is the motivation for the indirectness to begin with (Brown and
Levinson, 1978).
Besides the use of a modal like can,4 Gumperz (1982) uses the term contextualization cue to refer to the class of linguistic
forms that typically serve as signals of contextual presuppositions and thus guide the inferential process of situated interpretation.
Another class of contextualization cues is the set of discourse markers identified by Schiffrin (1987). Discourse markers serve
to indicate interpretive links between different segments of an ongoing discourse. Obvious examples include and, but, and since;
less obvious is the marker well. well is used to mark a response to a request to indicate that the upcoming contribution is not
fully consonant with prior coherence options (Schiffrin, 1987, p. 103); that is, the speaker assumes that what she is about to say
is not exactly what the requestor expects to hear (A: You say you were raised in Paris? B: well, actually I was raised in a rural
community 60 kilometers outside of Paris). In other words, well functions as a type of response marker that signals a divergence
from the implied coherence options conveyed by the prior utterance.
4 For a detailed illustration of the role of the modal auxiliaries in indirect speech acts (e.g., the use of will in Will you pass the salt?), see Searle, 1976, and
Gordon and Lakoff, 1971; for an illustration of their use as speaker-stance devices in child language, see Gerhardt and Savasir, 1986, and Gerhardt, 1989, 1991.
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Similarly, our claim is that, in the therapeutic context, i don't know tends to function as another discourse marker in
Schiffrin's sense, specifically, as another type of response marker. This claim rests on the analysis of i don't know (presented
later) suggesting that this clausal marker is most often used by the patient in a way that goes beyond its literal semantic-level
meaning, that is, as a marker indicating the speaker's lack of knowledge about a particular state of affairs. Instead, it is most often
used to convey a more specific, contextually situated meaning. By this, we do not mean to deny the relevance of the semantic
meaning encoded by i don't knowand in this sense i don't know differs from the response marker well, which has no semantic
content. Rather, just as the use of since has both a semantic meaning and a pragmatic value (specifically, a temporal meaning
encoded by the form and a causally implied meaning), on the basis of the putative demand characteristics we present, it is argued
that the therapeutic context provides an interpretive frame for the semantic meaning of i don't know to license a further pragmatic
inference: namely, the presence of something absent. That is, whether it is used to express the patient's own reluctance to
self-explore or as an intimation of something yet unknown or not completely conceptualized, i don't know is used when the
senses and marks what Ogden (1992a) refers to as presence in absence and absence in presence (p. 520). In other words, the
use of i don't know functions as a means of marking something as present yet unknownalmost like a variable in an algebra
problemwhich then generates a collaborative search for a solution.
Now, from a psychodynamic perspective, it is, of course, very tempting to interpret the occurrence of i don't know as a
straightforward case of resistancea blocking of the chain of associationswith no further redeeming value. Given that this
marker tends to occur at moments of greater disclosure, however, to categorize it in virtue of its literal meaning as an expression
of resistance and leave it at that fails to capture the positive contribution this marker makes in the therapeutic environment.
It is worth noting that the finding that i don't know occurs in a context of greater disclosure accords with an observation of
Freud's (1925) that often the content of a repressed image or idea can make its way into consciousness, on condition that it is
negated (p. 235). To
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account for this paradox, Freud proposed that with the help of the symbol of negation, thinking frees itself from the restrictions
of repression and enriches itself with material that is indispensable for its proper functioning (p. 236). Now, although our data
on the use of i don't know in the context of disclosure appears to bear out Freud's claim, rather than adopt his metaphor of two
parties engaged in a strugglethought breaking free from the clutches of repressionwe will reframe Freud's insight in terms of
the idea of a fragmented or divided self: the self as split between multiple voices or multiple investments that have not (yet) been
dialectically synthesized owing to the existence of unintegrated representations.
There have been many formulations of the divided self or multiple-voices-of-the-self idea (Freud, 1923; Mead, 1934;
Bakhtin, 1981; Adler, 1988, 1992a; Gergen, 1991; Haiman, 1992 (to name a few). The model we, however, have found most
useful for conceptualizing our data is G. Lakoff's (1992) description of the Dualistic Person, proposed to account for a diverse
array of utterances in everyday speech. For example, according to Lakoff, the utterance If I were you, I'd hate myself for what
I've done, presupposes an unconscious model harboring a split between two parts of the self: the evaluating Subject, who is the
center of consciousness, will and judgementthe referent of I(p. 5), and the Self [that] includes beliefs, plans, passions,
memories, one's past, etc.the referent of myself(p. 6). Moreover, as Lakoff observes, The Subject's values may or may
not be compatible with the Self (p. 6). In that example, the Subject's values are not compatible with the Self's, over which it
stands as critic or judge. Similarly, in the data to be presented, it is suggested that the position of the i in i don't know reflects
the values and orientation of the reflective Subject, whereas the I in I feel kind of unfaithful reflects the values and
orientation of the experiencing Selfand the issue is one of the in/compatibility between them.
To summarize thus far, in order to account for most of the occurrences of i don't know in the therapeutic context, the marker
needs to be viewed as a particular device that locks into the assumptions-quademand characteristics of the therapeutic encounter.
These demand characteristics are a source of constraint on the manner in which analytic therapy is carried out. Although at first
blush the particular
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assumptions appear too benign to cause any trouble, we argue that, far from constituting a neutral set of discursive assumptions,
they are actually quite tendentious and thus play a formative role in constituting the psychodynamic encounter as an encounter of
a particular kind, that is, one that promotes the analytic stance of self-reflection. In other words, they define the interaction in
terms of a particular framea socially significant type of interactionthat contributes to the production/interpretation of what is
going on. Indeed, our claim is that it is precisely on the basis of these assumptions, and not on the amount of primary-process
material that obtains (Reynes et al., 1984), that therapeutic discourse differs from other genres of intimate discourse: for example,
troubles talk among friends (Jefferson, 1988), painful self-disclosure between acquaintances (Coupland et al., 1988), or the
conversation of intimate friendship (R. Lakoff, 1990). In a similar vein, Spence (1987) remarks how different it [therapeutic
discourse] is from a normal conversation due to the playing out of certain characteristic assumptions (p. 87). It follows that only
by understanding these assumptions and the way they operate as constraints on the meaning-making process will certain features
of the talk that occurs therein begin to make sense. This is especially so for the use of i don't know.
Before spelling out these assumptions, we should just mention that, with the contemporary fracturing of psychoanalytic
psychology into different paradigms (Hoffman, 1991), models (Mitchell, 1988), psychologies (Pine, 1990), the extent to
which each of the four assumptions is constitutive of, and necessary for, the establishment and maintenance of the analytic frame
is a matter of current debate. Even one of the most sacred assumptionsthe importance of interpreting unconscious
conflicthas been contested so that the question posed by Tansey (1992), Which is more important, insight or new experience?
(p. 306), is now open for serious discussion and has spurred several ingenious proposals (e.g., Spezzano, 1993; Ogden, 1994).
This openness with respect to the fundamental assumptions that characterizes the contemporary scene may make what follows
seem rather naive, pass, or dogmatic, as our proposals may rest on an outdated view of analytic theory and practice that was
more monolithic in its stated aims. Nevertheless, without intending to ignore all of the interesting and important recent
modifications of analytic theory, in that the
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following assumptions are still more or less operative, we will present themwhile acknowledging their somewhat
superannuated or idealized statusand then, in Part II, attempt to show how they help account for the patient's use of i dont'
know.
Four Assumptions-Qua-Demand Characteristics of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

1. It is Better to Know than not to Know
Corollary: knowing involves explicit conceptual knowledge captured in the container metaphor of putting one's thoughts/ feelings into
words
This assumption is stated quite clearly in a recent book by Oremland (1991) in which he distinguishes psychoanalytically
oriented psychotherapy from more supportive or interactive variants. According to Oremland, that it is better to know is the
singular value of the psychoanalytic orientation (p. 12), from which he concludes that the aim of an interpretation is to add
explicit knowledgean aim that is contrasted with that of a more interactive intervention whose aim is largely experiential
(p. 10). In other words, the crucial feature of the psychoanalytic approach is the belief in the primacy of knowledge as a means of
relieving psychic distress. Interpretations attempt to provide such knowledge by translating content theretofore unclear by means
of a conceptual statement. To emphasize the conceptual orientation of psychoanalysis over more supportive approaches,
Oremland suggests that we think of it as primarily investigative rather than therapeutic. It is for this reason that the
psychoanalytic orientation is said to offer insight or understanding over, or as a means of, cure. Oremland's account of the
psychoanalytic agenda is consonant with Rieff's (1966) description of the analytic attitude adopted by Freud, in contrast to the
therapeutic attitude adopted by many of his successors.
Another attempt to spell out the bias toward conceptual knowledge inherent in the psychoanalytic enterprise can be found in
Bucci's (1985) observation that, though Freud's theory acknowledges both verbal and nonverbal forms of representationand as
such can be construed as a dual code theoryit ultimately functions as a verbal
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dominance model since it assumes that language is the major modality of mature, conscious, rational thought (p. 225). Indeed,
the primary task of analytic work is to put affects and behaviors into words. According to Bucci, this task is accomplished by
establishing referential connections between Perceptual-Motor-Emotional Structures (nonverbal representations) and Verbal
Structures; in other words, by a process of integration between the two forms of representation. Thus, the real aim of an
interpretation is less a translation from action to thought and more an integration of verbal and nonverbal forms of representation.
Similarly, according to Lear (1990), a good interpretation represents the end of a developmental process which begins with
archaic attempts to say the same thing (p. 8).
One of the first attempts to spell out this bias toward conceptual knowledge over behavioral enactment can be found in
Freud's (1914) original essay Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through. In this essay, Freud explicitly contrasts the
conceptual act of remembering with the behavioral act of repetition and claims that the latter functions as a defense against the
former. Indeed, transference itself is conceived of as only a piece of repetition since it functions by replacing the impulse to
remember (p. 151) with a behavioral enactment. On the basis of this characterization of the dynamic relation between repetition
and recollection, Freud maintains that the goal of analysis is remembering in the old manner, reproduction in the psychical field
(p. 153), by which is meant converting symptomatic acts into verbal expression, which provides the basis for increased
self-knowledge.
In short, analytically based therapy rests on the premise It is better to know than not to know, where knowing involves the
translation of action into thought. Or, in the language of contemporary cognitive science, procedural knowledge must be
translated into declarative knowledge. Our point is that this belief plays a fundamental role in organizing the therapist's
particular mode of interventionwhich for present purposes can be glossed as aiming to make the unconscious conscious, and
thus, ultimately, the patient's mode of response.
It might be noted that the tendency to view mental health as requiring explicit conceptual knowledge of one's past history
receives support from recent work in the field of developmental psychology in terms of the distinction made between
representational and metarepresentational processes or having a representation and being
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able to reflect on that representation (Astington, Harris, and Olson, 1988). Thus, translating Tansey's question, Which is more
important, insight or new experience? insight can be viewed as equivalent to metacognitive knowledge about one's own
preexisting representations, whereas new experience can be viewed as a mode of interaction that ultimately brings about a
change at the representational level by means of a process similar to that posited by Piaget (1962) in his account of the
development of representation from sensorimotor enactive knowledge.
This distinction, between representational processes and metacognitive knowledge about one's representations, has
recently been applied in attachment-theory research in an attempt to determine the attachment status of the parents of infants
classified according to Ainsworth's scheme (Ainsworth et al., 1978). On the basis of interviews with adults about various aspects
of their attachment history, Main (1991) has found that the most striking feature of the narrative produced by a parent whose
infant is judged secure with him or her in the Ainsworth Strange Situation is its coherency (p. 260). Specifically, parents of
secure infants may themselves have had loving, secure relationships with their parents, or they may have experienced insecure or
even traumatic childhoods (p. 260). What is distinct about this group is manifest in the coherence of their accounts when they
are asked to reconstruct their attachment histories: there is a striking absence of multiple models of significant others in favor of
unified, integrated models. In Main's words, Coherent subjects seemed to be working with a singular model, whether of
favorable or unfavorable experiences and their effects (p. 260). From this, Main concludes that the mental processes of secure
individuals (whether adult or child) may be distinguished from insecure individuals not only in terms of their content, but also in
terms of their flexibility and readiness for examination (p. 261). In other words, secure parents (of secure babies) can adopt a
metacognitive stance that provides them with a means of integrating even disparate representations of the past and thus enables
them to construct a coherent account of their attachment history.
The questioning of the direct relevance of developmental psychology for psychoanalytic theorizing notwithstanding
(Spezzano, 1993), the fact that attachment theory is now appealing to the role of metacognitive awarenessor insight, in
Freudian termsas a way of
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distinguishing securely attached from insecurely attached adults is interesting and suggests that the bias toward conceptual
knowledge inherent in psychoanalysis rests on more than just ideological foundations.
2. It is Important to Observe and Reflect on Oneself

Corollary: a virtual separation needs to be established in the patient's self between an observing part and an experiencing part, and
the observing part needs to examine/reflect on the experiencing part.
Analytically oriented psychotherapy is based on a multiple-selves or divided-self model in which the separation of the self
into subject and object is viewed as central: the self-as-observer needs to separate from the stream-of-consciousness mode
characteristic of the self-as-experiencer and reflect on the latter's mode of functioning. In other words, even to engage in a
psychodynamic therapy requires that the patient be able to detach from her experiencing self and assume the roles of observer and
narrator. This requirement is due to the fact that, typically, when a person seeks therapy, something has gone awry in that
person's life that she wants to understand and change. What is involved is the forging of a separation between different parts of
the self whereby the observing part is induced to grasp an aspect of its own activity, that is, to think about, question, evaluate, and
understand the purpose and motivation of certain problematic forms of behavior. Our claim is that the forging of such a
separation between different parts of the self is brought about by the therapist's distinct mode of intervention.
From a literary perspective, according to Freccero (1986), the structure of a divided self is inherent in all autobiographical
accounts, that is, all representations of the self from a retrospective stance require a separation between the self-as-narrator from
the self-as-character. As Freccero puts it, the separation of the self into narrator and character springs from the formal
exigencies of telling one's life story (p. 16), fashioning a historical portrait of the self. Accordingly, Freccero suggests that even
the narrative of conversion found in Augustine's
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Confessionsfrom sinner to saintneeds to be viewed as an instance of, and metaphor for, the transformation of the self,
represented in this genre in a theological guise. Our claim is that therapeutic discourse is another type of autobiographic narrative
activity in which one part of the self not only narrates other parts of the self, but observes, reflects on, evaluates, criticizes,
censors, and reveals other parts of the self for the purpose of achieving some kind of self-transformation.
In fact, the self-as-observer separate from the self-as-experiencer forms the basis for certain technical recommendations that
draw on the metaphor of a divided self, or a dissociation within the ego as Sterba (1934) would have it. For example,
proposals concerning the therapeutic alliance (Zetzel, 1956) or working alliance (Greenson, 1967) are based on a model of a
divided self in which the observing self is assumed to separate from the observed self and form an identification with the
therapist. Note that both of these technical formulations presuppose an ego (self) capable of assuming the heterogeneous roles of
observer and observed, a phenomenon that, according to Sterba (1934), is brought about by the therapist's transference
interpretations. As mentioned earlier, we can think of this split in G. Lakoff's (1992) terms as a split between the Subject and
the Self: the evaluating Subject, who is the center of consciousness, will and judgement (p. 5) and the Self, who in this
context is the experiencer (container) of various emotional states.
To demonstrate the form that the separation of the self into Subject and Self can take during a therapy hour, let us consider an
example from our previous research (Gerhardt and Stinson, 1994). In that paper (the data come from the same patient and the
same hour presented in Part II), the inquiry was focused on the patient's use of the particular discourse markers i mean and so as a
means of marking self-accounts. To illustrate, in her 12th therapy session, the patient begins by announcing that she's having an
anxiety attack, feels as if she was going to go out of [her] mind, and that her week has been chaotic. She then reports that
she and her significant other have decided to get married and states that she has been a wreck ever since and sick to [her]
stomach, though she has finally started calming down about it. This sequence is followed by two statements, both of which
are framed with the self-reflexive, metalinguistic marker i mean: i mean I don't know why I'm so distraught about it. i mean it
was not like I had to
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make this decision, but once I agreed I was like panicked. A narrative follows in which the patient's recent encounter with her
mother-in-law-to-be is portrayed as a success, thus supporting the patient's claim of puzzlement as to the reason for her distress.
With regard to the shift between the discursive positions of Self and Subject, note that the patient begins by describing her
emotional states and their trajectory over the week. Although she mentions her recent decision to marry, no connection is made
between this decision and her distress; instead, she merely expresses or reports her distress. In contrast, when the i mean
statements are used, the patient assumes a different stance to the material: one of evaluation. Specifically, she begins to consider
the reason for her distress. Though she is not able to figure herself out, the problem is made explicit at the metacognitive level for
the first time and is done so through the use of the self-reflexive marker i mean. For our purposes, the point to be made here is
that the i mean utterances are used not only to organize a shift in narrative perspectivefrom description to evaluationbut also
to organize a shift within the self as the patient assumes a stance of greater self-awareness. Using G. Lakoff's (1992) terminology,
when i mean is used, the patient steps out of the experiential Self mode she initially presents with the assumes the role of
reflective/evaluative Subject who begins to consider the reasons for the Self's distress.
While such stance shifting into a more self-reflexive/self-evaluative mode surely occurs in certain types of everyday talk, our
claim is that it is present in an almost hypertrophied form in therapeutic discourse and results from the inducement inherent in the
therapist's mode of intervention, which is geared to establishing and maintaining the analytic frame.
3. There is More to the Story than Meets the Eye

Corollary: certain forms of expression manifest different levels of meaninga primary meaning and a more indirectly conveyed
symbolic meaning; primary meanings function as a means of both revealing and concealing latent secondary meanings.
According to Spence (1987), psychoanalysis rests on the assumption that things are not what they seem, and thus surface
meanings are considered suspect in favor of more abiding latent meanings. Thus, the
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patient's account of her experience is assumed to represent something other (more) than what is said; specifically, surface
meanings are viewed as derivatives of some piece of the patient's unconscious. It follows that the therapist needs to cultivate a
distinct mode of listening that translates surface into depth.
Such a tendentious assumption, however, has been cause for some concern. For example, the agenda of self psychology
revolves around the premise that it is important to stay with the patient's subjective experience rather than think of it (solely) as a
means of resistance to warded-off content (Kohut, 1984). Other theorists have found other ways of restricting the domain over
which the programmatic skepticism toward surface meanings applies. For instance, in the vein of the prize caveatSometimes a
cigar is just a cigar, Peters (1958) argues that different modes of explanation find their relevance with respect to different types
of behavior so that the psychoanalytic quest for deep meaning in the form of unconscious motives (over conscious reasons) is
appropriate only for cases when there is some kind of deviation from the purposive rule-following model [of behavior], when
people, as it were, get it wrong (p. 10). That is, an appeal to unconscious motives and wishes is relevant when questions are
raised such as What made, drove, or possessed a person to act?in cases of lapses of actionrather than cases of
successfully executed actions or achievements (p. 10). Be that as it may, as Spence (1987) points out, assuming a hidden message
beneath surface appearances is fundamental to the psychoanalytic enterprise and provides the impetus for the search for
unconscious motives and fantasies.
Moreover, although the assumption that there is more to the story than meets the eye typically rests on a surface-depth model
in which the mind is conceived as a layered set of representations that require spade work, it need not. An alternate formulation is
offered by Ricoeur (1970), who argues that the psychoanalytic program is situated with respect to the problem of double
meaning, by which he means the designation of an indirect meaning in and through a direct meaning. For Ricoeur, the dream
serves as a prototype for all disguised expressions of desire. Accordingly, the manifest level of behavior is viewed as the locus of
a complex set of significantions in which one meaning is both given by and hidden in another meaning. To mean something
other than what is said is, according to Ricoeur, the essence of the
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psychoanalytic problematic and, as such, provides the basis for the analyst's particular mode of depth interpretation.
In addition, Ricoeur observes that psychoanalysis actually differs from other modes of interpretation in that the manifest level
of meaning is viewed not only as an expression of the latent, but also as a motivated distortion. In other words, surface
meaning is viewed as a defensive distortion of a more basic level of meaning. It follows that the purpose of an interpretation is
not just to penetrate the surface, but to expose it as a tactical cover-up. In more philosophical terms, interpretationsof either
resistance or contentare here conceived as attempts to strip away the illusions of conscious thought, once viewed as the site of
indubitable certainty. In Ricoeur's own words, since Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, this [consciousness] too has become doubtful.
After the doubt about things, we have started to doubt consciousness itself (p. 33). The problem Ricoeur outlines gives rise to a
unique mode of inquiry, which he calls the hermeneutics of suspicion, that takes to the extreme the premise There is more to
the story than meets the eye.
For present purposes, what is important to recognize is how the assumption of surplus meaning (i.e., there being other levels
of meaning than the conscious reflective level) has almost axiomatic status in psychodynamic thinking and, as such, forms the
basis for many of the interventions that aim to induce the patient to go beyond his or her consciously fashioned account.
4. It is Necessary to Get to the Level of Personal Significance When Interpreting Problematic Forms of
Behavior
Corollary: the level or kind of meaning that is important to interpret is that which has been referred to as the level of personal
motivation by Loewald (1971). The level of personal motivation includes not only the personal meaning of a particular action or
event, but also the patient's investment in viewing him- or herself in particular ways.
According to Loewald, psychoanalytic interpretation can be distinguished from other interpretive endeavors by the basic or,
in his words,
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funamental, assumption on which it is based: namely, that whatever transpires is personally motivated (p. 103). This means
that both the content of the patient's material and its occurrence at a particular moment in the hour have a personal meaning for
the patient. In Loewald's words, What the patient reveals is motivated [from] within and not simply [a] chance occurrence or
merely determined by forces external to him (p. 103). Loewald illustrates his claim with the case of a woman who feels plagued
by a compulsion to murder her child, a compulsion that is initially viewed as a strange, impersonal force but that comes to be
understood as a means for the gratification of repressed hostility harbored toward her spouse and, ultimately, her father: What
was an impersonal, unrelated compelling force becomes inserted in a linkage of personal motivation (p. 105). In this context,
personal motivation refers to a particular unconscious fantasy of a wishful aggressive impulse allegedly being gratified by the
otherwise opaque symptom.
In a similar vein, Schafer (1980) has suggested that in the course of analysis, the analysand comes to construct narratives of
personal agency ever more readily, independently, convincingly, and securely. The important questions to be answered
concern personal agency, and the important answers reallocate the attributions of activity and passivity (p. 226). Note that
whereas Loewald's interpretive principle is stated in terms of the patient's personal motivation or personal meaning, Schafer's
focuses on the patient's agency in bringing about the situations that distress her. Whatever variant one chooses, the point is that
the principles of interpretation of analytically oriented psychotherapy are not neutral, but revolve around a core set of personal or
subject-centered meanings. Our claim is that these core meanings structure the therapist's particular mode of intervention and
thus function as implicit contextual demands that play a role in organizing the patient's mode of response.
With regard to the specific content covered by the principle of personal motivation, interpretations tend to be pitched at the
level of wishful impulses, that is, endogenous factors (see Greenberg, 1991, for an explication and critique). More specifically,
interpretations of unconscious content are typically made in terms of unconscious affects and drives, especially the patient's
sexual and aggressive fantasies. It is assumed that certain affects and drives (wishful impulses) have been
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stifled from expression because of, among other factors, their social inappropriateness and, as such, have taken up residence
within the unconscious. Because, however, out of sight does not mean out of mind, the repressed affects and drives persist,
unacknowledged, and thus constitute the source of the patient's distress. They are manifest in therapy in terms of transference
distortions. This assumption forms the basis for what Foucault (1979) has dubbed the repressive hypothesis, referring to the
modern (Freudian) discourse on sex that has it that sex has been repressed: condemned to silence, nonexistence, and
prohibitiona claim that Foucault vehemently contests.
On the basis of this assumption, interpretations founded on personal motivation and personal meaning typically target the
patient's putative wishful impulses (sexual or aggressive motives) and the consequent self-reflexive emotions such as guilt and,
more recently, shame. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the example adduced by Loewald (1971) to illustrate the
principle of personal motivation is one in which the patient is said to suffer from a repressed aggressive impulse: the patient's
compulsion to murder her child is viewed as a derivative of the impulse to murder her husband and, ultimately, her father. In
other words, the personal motivation for this compulsion is assumed to rest on a series of displaced projections of the patient's
repressed instinctual aggression.
Whatever the merits of Loewald's claim, the point here is to observe that it rests on a very distinct preconception about the
nature of personal motivation: that is, the meaning of the symptom is taken to be equivalent to the fantasied fulfillment of a
wishful, in this case aggressive, impulse rather than, for instance, an expression of an unconscious perception of the therapist as
hostile (as Gill, 1982, might have it). This way of viewing personal motivation accords with the classical Freudian account,
which, according to Greenberg (1991), rests on the premise that unconscious contents are equivalent to endogenously generated
motives, specifically, the sexual and aggressive drives and their derivatives (p. 58). In contrast, approaches that Greenberg
characterizes as embodying a relational/structure model (Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983) are founded on the attempt to shift
away from Freud's emphasis on the endogenous or instinctual toward interpersonal experience (Greenberg, 1991, p. 59).
Relational models provide the basis for a different interpretive focus, one that
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begins with the patient's perception/experience of the therapist even as a determinant of the transference.
In this context, it is worth noting that owing to the hold of the archeological metaphor, what Spence (1987) calls the myth of
the innocent analyst (the idea that the analyst is only hearing what is there) from the traditional point of view, interpretations
are viewed as reflections of preexistent unconscious material. In no sense are they thought to provide new ways of viewing or
organizing this material. Reciprocally, it is assumed that the patient confesses or admits to buried affects and drives
(regarded as impulses festering inside), which are inculpated as causes of the patient's distress. Again, in no sense are the
therapist's probes or interpretations viewed as playing a formative role in constituting the patient's mode of self-presentation and
self-understanding. Since our intent in this paper is not to critique these assumptions (but see Foucault's 1979, 1985, 1986,
account of the various historical practices that have constituted sexuality as something to be hidden and thus something to be
confessed, as well as Rose 1989 and Stenson 1992), at this point it suffices to note that these views are based on a set of positivist
beliefs about the nature of the mind as an independently existing reality, and the interpretive process as an attempt to explicate
that reality independent of attempts to organize it. In contrast, according to the constructivist position in psychoanalytic
theorizing, the meaning-making process is dependent on the interpretive codes in terms of which it is carried out (see Schafer,
1980, 1992; Spence, 1982, 1992; Lear, 1990; Hoffman, 1991, 1992; Mitchell, 1992; Spezzano, 1993, among others, for an
explication and critique).
In summary, we have attempted to draw attention to the very distinct interpretive bias that the psychoanalytic paradigm rests
on whereby personal motivation, in Loewald's (1971) terms, translates into the internal vicissitudes of fantasy and desire, that
is, endogenous instinctual forces dissociated from the reality of the patient's experience. This bias is the basis for a standard set of
interpretive assumptions that are projected onto the patient's material by means of the therapist's distinct mode of intervention.
(For an alternative view, see Greenberg, 1991.) As a consequence, a set of implicit norms for what counts as role-appropriate
behavior by the patient are brought about; for example, the patient's initial accounts of daily events come to be
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retoldfirst by the therapist, then by the patientby incorporating aspects of the psychodynamic themes of personal meaning
and endogenous motivation (Schafer, 1992).
Coda to Part I
Recently, there has been a trend toward more interactive and dialogically conceived notions of the psychodynamic encounter
that recognize the reciprocal influence that exists between therapist and patient, even if that influence is asymmetrical in nature
(Aron, 1991). This new emphasis on what Schafer (1980, 1992) calls the dialogic approach to psychoanalysis, or what
Hoffman (1983, 1991) refers to as the social constructivist view of the psychoanalytic experience and, concomitantly, the
social view of the transference, provides a redefinition of the forces that are at play in the psychoanalytic encounter, moving
away from a closed-systems monadic view toward a relatively more intersubjective view (Stolorow et al., 1987), especially one
that recognizes the impact of the therapist's subjective experience on the patient (Hoffman, 1991). In the first part of this paper,
we have attempted to join forces with this paradigm shift by examining a set of implicit assumptions that analytically trained
therapists share which function to structure their mode of listening and evaluation, as well as their mode of intervention; thus,
ultimately, these assumptions also play a role in shaping the patient's mode of response (including the transference). We think of
these assumptions as demand characteristics of the therapeutic encounter insofar as they provide a set of implicit cues that
communicate to the patient which kinds of behaviors are expected and thus provide the conceptual frame within which the
therapetic interaction is carried out.
Now, we turn to a different order of phenomenon. Rather than examine facets of the therapeutic frame we focus on a
particular event that is embedded within the frame: namely, the occurrence of the response marker i don't know. That is, we shall
examine a few examples of a particular patient's use of the marker i don't know from two psychotherapy sessions and suggest
that, its literal meaning notwithstanding, it functions as a way of dealing with the felt presence of the demand characteristics
articulated earlier. Specifically, the patient's use of i don't know signals her involvement in the therapeutic process as
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defined by these assumptions, that is, her recognition of and attempt to grapple with the following demands: It is better to know
than not to know; It is important to observe and reflect on oneself; There is more to the story than meets the eye; and Get to
the personal significance of the matter. Indeed, on the basis of our previous analysis of the same patient's use of the markets i
mean and so (Gerhardt and Stinson, 1994), together with the current analysis of her use of i don't know, we submit that the system
of markers referred to as discourse markers by Schiffrin (1987) plays a special role in analytic therapy, namely, that these
markers are used by the patient to engage in, and thus help to bring about, the self-inspecting/self-reflective stance on which
analytic therapy is based. A similar claim is made for the use of irrealis modality in therapy by Gaik (1992).
Part II
The Uses of i don't know: Data Analysis from a Single Case Study
The patient, whom we will refer to as P, is a woman in her early 40s who responded to a public notice seeking volunteers for
a research and therapy study on unresolved grief.5 Though P's husband, James had died in a traumatic accident about a year
and a half before she presented herself to the research/therapy program, P felt that she was not recovering from her loss. P met
the criteria for the DSM III-R diagnoses for both PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder and showed prominent signs of a
significant pathological grief reaction. P described herself as having been very happily married to James. They were productive
professionals with young children. James's sudden and violent death stunned P and resulted in a chaotic experience of alternating
states of either intrusion (intrusive, dysphoric thoughts and images of James) or avoidance (numbness and denial). P came to
therapy after a few months of dating Sidney, a kind and stable man, at the point when their relationship had begun to deepen. P
acted as if she felt she did not merit this new relationship. While her intimacy with Sidney was comforting, it also made her feel
guilty and anxious, especially when she
5 The present research is part of a larger program of research on the nature of unresolved grief directed by Mardi Horowitz, M.D. and Charles Stinson, M.D.
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thought of herself as the devoted wife of James. Thus, P tended to avoid talking about her relationships and shifted her attention
to the travails of daily life. P's continual avoidance of these emotion-laden topics, however, disrupted the working-through
process of mourning and contributed to her intense anxiety. (See Horowitz, et al. 1993, for an analysis of this case according to
Horowitz's theory of pathological grief; see also Horowitz, 1990.)
Appendices A-D contain three examples of the use of i don't know from three different episodes in P's psychotherapy. As
noted above, what is so interesting about the use of this response marker is its nonrandom occurrence in the therapy sessions: i
don't know tends to occur at moments of greater emotional elaboration and disclosure on P's part (Stinson et al., in prep.). Indeed,
the fractured quality of P's speech at moments of self-disclosureodd evasions, contradictions, pauses, sighs, etc.suggests that
we catch P in the midst of shifting from one perspective to another, working out her thoughts in the process.
The data we examine here come from the following sessions: (i) Session I: units #1-55 (Appendices A and B); (ii) Session I:
units #176-227 (Appendix C); and (iii) Session XII: units #207-256 (Appendix D). Note that part of the first example is
presented twice. The first version of Session I in Appendix A is the original version and presents units #1-55 from the transcript
verbatim. Appendix B presents a slightly altered version of units #29-30, which (a) omits the i don't know marker (indicated as
0), and (b) inserts other possible discourse markers that, from both a syntactic and semantic point of view, might have occurred
but did not. We offer this comparison to throw into relief the distinct meaning imparted through the use of i don't know. (At this
point, the reader is advised to read over the transcripts to get a feel for the phenomenon under scrutiny).
Example I contains the first occurrence of i don't know from P's first therapy session. The session begins with P's comment
that T (the therapist) is wired. (Both P and T wear physical sensors monitoring heart-rate, skin temperature, and skin
conductance). T responds with an evaluation of the set-up (#2: a totally strange experience) and then proceeds with business as
usual: he informs P that he has an overall idea of what has happened to her and inquires into her current state (#14). P responds
by recounting her current symptoms, thereby providing her version of her troubles. At this point, however, her account
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is closed down as T returns to the earlier topic, that is, P's reaction to the set-up, and he formulates another evaluation: #20:
Maybe we should take a minute toand talk about this whole set up and [laugh] what you think of it and how you feel about
the whole thing, because it is kind of a strange way, you know, to do therapy and it is an unusual situation. After P agrees, T
reiterates his request, trying to mitigate its force: Uh, I just kind of wondered what your own reactions are to it, uh.
For an understanding of P's use of i don't know in #30, the conversation-analytic construct of a preference organization in
discourse (Pomerantz, 1984) is useful. According to Pomerantz, an initial evaluation or assessment by a speaker is formulated in
such a way (positively or negatively) that the recipient is invited either to agree or to disagree; a next action that is oriented to as
invited will be called a preferred next action; its alternative a dispreferred next action. Pomerantz adds that agreement is a
preferred action across a large diversity of initial assessments (p. 63). Thus, when a speaker makes an initial evaluation, it is
made in such a way that the recipient not only is invited to give an evaluative response, but also will feel constrained to agree
with the valence of the initial evaluation. It follows that departures from this format will in some way be marked. Accordingly,
T's evaluation of the set-up as strange and unusual constitutes a relatively negatively valenced assessment. In context it can
even be heard as a disguised complaint. As a complaint, it functions as an invitation to P to cocomplain. Based on this
interpretation, the preferred next conversational response would be for P to express her own discomfort with the set-up.
P, however, does not immediately comply with this expectation and thus formulates her rejoinder with the formal markings
of a dispreferred response (p. 63). First, her response is framed with the discourse marker well. As noted earlier, according to
Schiffrin (1987), well is used as a response marker that anchors its user in an interaction when an upcoming contribution is not
fully consonant with prior coherence options (p. 103). Accordingly, P's use of well signals her reluctance to align herself with
T's relatively negative assessment. Further, as is standard with dispreferred moves, P adduces reasons to support her response: I
haven't had much therapy to compare it . I've tried it a few times and not very successfully. As a marker of conclusions, SO
is selected to mark P's relatively more positive assessment,
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which is only fully expressed in unit #30: so Uh, i don't know. It doesn't bother me.
Our concern here is to understand the use of i don't know. First, in terms of the discourse context, this first occurrence
functions as part of a response to T's request for an evaluation. As such, this use is explicitly dialogic. The importance of this
observation will become apparent in the light of the other examples, which are not explicitly dialogic yet still maintain the status
of a rejoinder. Furthermore, in the context of the assessment that follows (It doesn't bother me), the use of i don't know can be
viewed as a hedge (G. Lakoff, 1972), which is used to mitigate the force of P's nonaligned response. As Pomerantz (1984)
points out, speakers typically deploy a variety of devices (well, uh, yes, but, etc.) to blunt the impact of a dispreferred
response. In context, the use of i don't know functions as such a device by displaying P's discomfort with her nonaligned stance.
Moreover, from the perspective of face-saving strategies (referred to as politeness in linguistics; Brown and Levinson, 1978), P
may be assuming that, T's solicitation notwithstanding, complaints about the set-up would not really be welcome, especially since
the procedures have already been agreed to. Therefore, her use of i don't know may reflect that she feels caught in a double bind:
a wish to acknowledge her discomfort at seeing T wired to a monitor (see #35) and a concomitant wish to help him save
faceand her own therapy to boot!
Now, while these various interpretations of the use of i don't know may each be useful, our claim is that they are not
sufficient since they fail to capture the particular meaning that this marker imparts in the therapeutic context. To explicate this
meaning, however, another feature of the context must first be noted. On the basis of the demand characteristics listed earlier,
psychodynamic therapy can be viewed as a particular type of autobiographic context, a context in which the patient is expected to
report events, feelings, and thoughts that only she has knowledge of. Rather than report external events per se, much of the talk
concerns the patient's thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about such events. These autobiographic events are defined as A-events
by Labov and Fanshell (1977), that is, events that exist in the patient's biography and thus are known to the patient but not to the
therapist. According to Labov and Fanshell, normally A [the client]
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has privileged access to these events and can deal with them as an expert without fear of contradiction (p. 62, italics added).
With the notion of an A-event in mind, what does it mean for P to respond with i don't know to a query about such an
event, one to which only she has privileged access? To expose the peculiar nature of this response, let us consider a contrasting
case: the use of i don't know as a response to a question about an event that has a different epistemic status, an observable, factual
event, for example, What was the date of the last Bay Area earthquake? Here, the appropriateness of the response market i
don't know to convey the speaker's belief that she does not have the requisite information is unassailable (even if unlikely in
certain parts of the world). In contrast, to respond with i don't know to a query about an A-eventsuch as one's reaction to one's
therapyis not as straightforwardly appropriate, nor is the relevance of the literal meaning as clear.
For the sake of argument, let us assume, on the basis of P's prior experience in therapy, that she is at least implicitly familiar
with the foregoing demand characteristics. That is, she knows she is expected to become aware of herself and the hidden
meanings of her actions. If so, wouldn't her use of i don't know constitute resistance, an almost classic case of superego resistance
in which P feigns compliance with the status quo? That is, in the light of Assumption IIt is better to know than not to
knowthe response I don't know, especially in conjunction with the subsequent evaluation (It doesn't bother me), suggests
that P is resistant to any examination of her thoughts and feelings; in the light of Assumption IIIt is important to observe and
reflect on oneselfthe apparent way in which P does not reflect on her own reaction suggests resistance as well; in the light of
Assumption IIIThere is more to the story than meets the eyethe fact that no attempt is made to figure out what this
additional meaning might be seems similarly resistant; and in the light of Assumption IVIt is necessary to get to the level of
personal significancethe fact that, at this point, P's personal feelings are not disclosed (they are finally expressed in
#35)adds to the impression that P is resisting in order to maintain the status quo.
Nevertheless, to treat this use of i don't know as an expression of resistance without further inquiry is tantamount to imposing
a
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preestablished, authoritative frame on P's response and thus bypasses an understanding of the unique way in which this particular
marker works in the therapeutic context. To throw into relief the distinct meaning associated with the use of i don't know, let us
briefly consider a set of alternate markersmarkers that, from a syntactic or semantic point of view, could have occurred but did
not. Turn to the slightly altered version of Session I (#29-30) presented after the original version in Appendix B. In this slightly
altered transcript, unit #30, which in its original form read: Um, I don't know. It doesn't bother me, displays the following
substitute markers: (a) Um. [0], it doesn't bother me; (b) Um. Gee! It doesn't bother me; (c) Um. Let me see! It doesn't
bother me; (d) Um. Well, it doesn't bother me; (e) Um. Screw you! It doesn't bother me.
To take each of these response markers quickly in turn, option (a), which omits the marker altogether, takes away the hedge
and so takes away the primary indication of discomfort with the non-aligned response, thus eliminating any overt sign of conflict.
In option (b), the marker Gee! indicates surprise and thus conveys the speaker's sense of surprise at being asked the question or
surprise at her own response. The remainder of the response appears conflict free. Let me see! in option (c) suggests that the
speaker has not considered the question before, although it is not marked as a surprise per se, and will now give it its ruminative
due. The subsequent conclusion also appears to be conflict free. In option (d), Well is used to indicate that the speaker's
response is not in alignment with prior coherence options (Schiffrin, 1987); hence, it also functions as a hedge that conveys
discomfort in presenting a nonaligned response. Its occurrence signals potential conflict. In option (e), the use of Screw you!
suggests that the previous request for the speaker's reaction is interpreted as an accusation by the speaker, who retaliates with
anger at the charge. The point of this five-finger exercise is to suggest that none of these other markers helps to bring about the
self-reflective/analytic stance that promotes further work on the self.
In contrast, what about the use of i don't know? On one hand, it may be in part true that P has not (yet) considered or
formulated her reaction to the set-up so that the literal meaning of the marker holds. This explanation, however, is suspect on two
accounts. First, in a context where it is expected that P will reflect on her emotional states (as
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noted earlier, P has had therapy before, and thus we will assume that she is familiar with this expectation), to respond with i don't
know without some effort at self-reflection challenges the agenda of the therapy. Second, since P does eventually deliver a
judgementa somewhat negative one (#35: Seeing you hooked up to it seems a little strange)this suggests that she may have
had some inkling of these feelings all along. Considerations such as these would seem to support the standard resistance
narrative (Schafer, 1980, 1992): resistance to the process of self-scrutiny, or to some warded-off content.
However, P's resistance notwithstandingan interpretation that is based on the marker's literal meaningour claim is that
this does not exhaust its interpretive possibilities. Instead, we suggest that in the therapeutic environment, i don't know functions
as a pragmatic device and, as such, conveys more than its literal, semantic-level meaning: in addition, the use of i don't know
reveals some awareness of, and responsiveness to, the putative demand characteristics that define the context. Specifically, we
suggest that it is only because P realizes that she is expected to have self-understanding (I), to reflect on and evaluate her own
behaviors (II), to figure out their deeper meanings (III), and to figure out their personal meanings (IV) that i don't know is used at
this point in the process. In other words, the motivation for selecting i don't know is not to express lack of knowledge per se, but
to convey P's reluctance to explore her thoughts further given the following two conditions: (a) an external condition, namely, P's
awareness of being in a context in which meanings are to be explored rather than assumed to be self-evident; and (b) an internal
condition, namely, P's sense that there is something which is not yet fully known, yet is in some way present, that she is
uncomfortable expressing.
Given these considerations, we suggest that in the therapeutic environment, P's use of i don't know expresses the following
indexical meaning: the presence of something absent. Whether the absence is due to a cloudy or incomplete formulation on P's
part or is the result of defensive warding-off is not the point. As we have noted, i don't know is used when the patient senses and
marks what Ogden (1992a) refers to as presence in absence and absence in presence (p. 520). Indeed, according to Ogden, the
principle of presence in absence and absence in presence reflects the dialectical nature of meaning, which is distinctive to the
meaning construction process in psychoanalysis
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where meanings are Simultaneously constituted and decentered from themselves and exist in tension with their opposites. This
process is typically played out phenomenologically in the form of the simultaneity of conscious and unconscious meaning (p.
520). On the basis of Ogden's formulation of absent presence, we suggest that the use of i don't know constitutes a kind of
momentary staging area defined by the felt tension of an absent presence in which the stated absence alludes to a presence that
is experienced as lacking. In more cognitive terms, it is as if the process of activating a previously inactive fantasy is being
mooted.
With this interpretation of P's use of i don't know in mind, let us now return to the transcripts to examine how the expression
of absent presence is used by P to signal missing content, and how this meaning functions as part of a dialectically organized
self-disclosing process. Three different use-types of i don't know have been identified in the data.6 Each of these different
use-types conveys the elusive meaning absent presence in a somewhat different fashion so that the dialectic of disclosure and
disavowal takes a different form of expression in each. For convenience sake, the three different use-types will be referred to as:
(i) the blocking-off use, (ii) the cutting-off use, and (iii) the groping use. We have chosen the three segments of transcript to
illustrate each of the different use-types in turn.
The first example from Session I, which we have been discussing, exemplifies a blocking-off use. It is as if i don't know
were used to erect a metaphorical barrier between P as reflective subject and her own thought content. That is, if we assume that
initially P has a startled-to-negative reaction at seeing her therapist wired to a monitor (as #35 suggests), then the use of i don't
knowespecially in conjunction with the evaluation It doesn't bother meserves as a means of blocking off these negative
feelings. In G. Lakoff's (1992) terms, the use of i don't know functions as a barrier between the reflective Subject and the
experiencing self whereby the subject blocks access to the self.
6 The literal meaning uses of i don't know have been omitted from this analysis, e.g., P: I don't know when I will find the time. Also, Horowitz (1977)
provides a different analysis of the use of i don't know by a patient with a hysterical character structure. In this case, the marker is viewed as functioning
literally as well as serving as an injunction against further thought (p. 230).
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This, however, is not the whole story, which is the main reason for going beyond the standard resistance interpretation. That
is, note that P's account of her reaction to the set-up is not a linear account. Rather, the account is structured dialectically, starting
with the disavowal in #33 and then proceeding to a partial disclosure in #35. Indeed, almost all instances of P's use of i don't
know follow suit; that is, i don't know tends to be used in accounts that bring together some kind of elaboration of personal
material (disclosure) with the attempt to disavow this meaningful content. We maintain that this finding is not quixotic; rather, it
follows from the dialectical principle of meaning construction suggested by Ogden (1992a, b).
Therefore, what we learn from this example is that, despite appearances to the contrary, the use of i don't know not only
functions to block self-disclosureas the notion of resistance would have itbut it also functions as an inherent part of the
self-disclosing process. Indeed, the very way P handles her disclosure in this segment is itself quite striking. The dialectical
format allows P to express and move between different and partially incommensurable voices: the voice of the
face-saving/satisfied customer eager to reassure her therapist and proceed with business as usual versus the voice of the
critical/apprehensive consumer feeling concerned about her therapy. Thus, rather than view P's disclosure in #35 as being the
crossing of a barrier from surface to depthwhere depth is viewed as a container for preexistent contentsthe use of i don't
know introduces a diachronic, and thus dialectical, dimension into the therapy: it signals the existence of some kind of absent
content and the possibility of doing work on the self to formulate this content.
Moreover, note that it is only after T's own disclosure of discomfort in #31 and #33 (Well you're one up on me [P laughs] or
maybe you've had [laugh] a little more experience than I have) that P begins to formulate the substance of this missing content.
Indeed, this example provides a nice illustration of the claim that meaning involves a constructive negotiation between at least
two subjects, a central tenet of the intersubjective perspective put forth by Stolorow and his colleagues (1987). According to
these authors, reality is not discovered or recovered, as is implied by Freud's archeological metaphor for the analytic process.
Nor, however, would it be entirely accurate to say that it is created or constructed, as some authors have claimed
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(Schafer, 1980; Spence, 1982). Rather, subjective reality becomes articulated through a process of empathic resonance
(Stolorow et al., 1987, p. 7). As we understand this claim, the patient's unformulated experience is given a particular shape,
meaning and form through the therapist's attunement with the patient's subjective experience. In terms of our particular example,
it is as if T's self-disclosure provides a frame by which P can organize her own heretofore prereflective experience.
To summarize, according to our interpretation of this example (and others of the blocking-off use variety), the use of i don't
know functions as a means of marking something as present yet unknownalmost like a variable in an algebra problemwhich
then generates a collaborative search for a solution.
Let us now turn to the second example of i don't know (#205) in Appendix C, which occurs about nine minutes after the first
use in Session I. Please read lines #176-227. Before this segment, P has indicated feeling pressured because of certain
impending financial decisions, and she explains that her settlement must cover both her and her children. T asks the children's
ages and then inquires into their general well-being (#182). P responds that her son is doing fine, but that her daughter Sue still
misses him [her deceased father James] horribly (#194). P's response is followed by a narrative that supports P's claim and that
concludes with an evaluation of the impact of Sue's distress on P (#199): It seems like every day she catches me offguard with
something. To induce P to explore her own emotional reactions to Sue's difficulties (rather than narrate about Sue herself), T
reformulates P's evaluation by highlighting her emotional state: Does it kind of get to you when she comes up with stuff like
that? P responds affirmatively and proffers another example of Sue's anxiety-provoking behavior. At this point, P appears to
become somewhat anxious about her disclosure and so truncates her account through the use of i don't know (#203): Well, yeah
she still, she draws, when she draws pictures she always still includes him. i don't know, she still just misses him a lot.
This use of i don't know (and other instances like it) is interpreted as a cuttingoff use since it functions as a means of
cutting off the disclosure of emotionally meaningful material. Moreover, we interpret this segment as one of self-disclosure on
P's part, as well as disclosure
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about her daughter, Sue. In other words, even though the passage is ostensibly about the thematic subject Sue, at another level, it
is also about P herself and the anxiety induced in P by Sue's continued preoccupation with her dead father. Our claim is that it is
precisely the experience of P's own anxiety that is being cut off through the use of i don't know.
In support of this claim, consider P's prolific use of the adverb still, which occurs six times in this segment. still is a
paradigm example of a force-dynamic expression (Talmy, 1988); it encodes the existence of two opposing forces. With
reference to the foregoing passage, the difference between the two utterances, She misses him horribly, and She still misses
him horribly, is that the former depicts a force-dynamically neutral event and, as such, is a descriptive statement about Sue's
emotional state; whereas the latter brings in one of two force-dynamic patterns, either (i) that Sue has tried to overcome her grief
but has been unsuccessful in her attempt, or (ii) that Sue continues to grieve the loss of her father and is not disturbed by her grief,
but P feels that Sue's grief and its symptomatic manifestations have lasted long enough and is impatient for Sue to return to
normal. Whereas the former pattern is based on a conflict within Sue herself, the latter pattern is based on a conflict between
mother and daughter. The interpretation of the second force-dynamic pattern accords with the claim that markers such as still
function as speaker-based evaluative devices to convey the speaker's attitudinal stance toward the content of a clause rather than
contributing to the content per se (Traugott, 1982, 1989; Schiffrin, 1987). In other words, rather than serving as a temporal
modifier of the verb, still is used to indicate that from the speaker's point of view, the event in question has lasted longer than it
should have. Thus, P's use of still can be viewed as an evaluative device that conveys her own anxiety and, ultimately,
displeasure over Sue's continued preoccupation with her father, James. Indeed, the issue of missing James may be particularly
problematic in this hour since P is about to embark on a trip abroad with her new companion, Sidneya trip that will include
cities once visited with James. In that P declares her desire to put her past behind her, presumably she would like her daughter
to do so as well.
Given this interpretation of still, this passage qualifies as a segment of self-disclosure on P's part. That is, the use of
force-dynamic still, the
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admission of being caught off guard by her daughter's preoccupations, plus the acknowledgment that these preoccupations get
to [her], work in concert to convey P's anxiety about her daughter's insistence on holding on to James.
Then, at some point in the disclosing process, it is as if P becomes uncomfortable with the portrait she fashions and the
anxiety she reveals, and so switches into the mode of the understanding parent who views her daughter's difficulties as part of the
normal grieving process. In this context, i don't know is used along with the minimizer just as a means of cutting off the act of
disclosure (#205: i don't know. She still just misses him a lot). Another version of Sue's behavior is then fashioned, signaled
by the use of the contrast marker but (#207), whose aim is to normalize any aberrancies: (#212): now she seems just to be a
pretty typical kid who misses, still misses her daddy.
The point is that once again, the marker i don't know turns up in a context of self-disclosure. Whereas the first example was
structured in terms of, roughly speaking, denial then disclosure, in the second example, disclosure precedes denial. Nevertheless,
whichever mode is chosen, we suggest that it is only because i don't know is used in this context to impart the subtle meaning the
presence of something absent that it turns up as part of the self-disclosing process. That is, although in the cut-off use-type,
the occurrence of i don't know functions as a means of truncating self-disclosure, in virtue of its contextual meaning, it also
functions as a signal of the cutting-off process itself, and thus, by inference, that there is more to be said on the topic at hand.
Thus, in context, i don't know functions strategically as a means of acknowledging the existence of that which is being denied and
so indicates that work is being done on the self.
Finally, let us turn to the last transcript in Appendix D, which contains a segment from P's 12th therapy session. There are 11
instances of i don't know in this passage, all of which are instances of what we call the groping use. Please read lines #207-256
from Session XII. At the beginning of the hour, P describes herself as extremely anxious, reports that she has been so all week,
and then announces that she and her significant other have decided to get married. She then expresses her confusion about the
source of her distress since, she claims, she has known all along of her desire to marry Sidney. After P gives an example
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of the extremity of her distress during the week, stressing her puzzlement as to its source, T issues the standard injunctionTell
me what you were thinking and feelingto induce P to reflect on her own inner processes. In response to T's request, P changes
the topic and reveals that she has had dysphoric, intrusive thoughts about her deceased husband, James. However, she quickly
curtails this disclosure, thereby avoiding the anxiety it raises, and begins to expatiate on the travails of everyday life. After
characterizing a friend's reaction to her engagement as both happy and sad, P concludes her narrative with an account of her
own multifaceted reaction: I think that's the way I feel about it, you know? Happy and sad. At this point, T, using the standard
injunction to convert feelings into words (#207), attempts to induce P to explore her feelings of sadness: Well I can see you
feeling some of the sadness. Can you try to put it into words?
What follows is an account of P's relationship with James which dramatically contrasts with P's previous accounts. That is,
until session 12, P has presented different versions of what we might think of as the perfect relationship narrative. The
relationship with James was portrayed as ideal. For example, in Session 1, the relationship is described as the perfect picture
where everything was perfect. In accord with this portrait, P elaborates, All I knew was uh, you know, love and trust and
commitment and devotion. Similarly, in Session 4, P expresses her concern that her feelings for Sidney will never equal her
feelings for James: I'm just afraid I'd always compare, you know, any relationship to that one and it would fall short, and she
insists that she cannot imagine herself loving anyone as much as she loved James.
In view of the consistency of this portrait, it is striking that in Session 12 an alternate version of the relationship emerges.
That is, in response to T's inquiry in #207, P expresses feeling conflicted owing to the intensity of her feelings for Sidney and her
consequent fear of betraying James. She states that it is overwhelming (#214) to think of being someone else's wife and the
corresponding change in identity that is required. She then begins to focus on her feelings for Sidney: in short, she reports feeling
a little guilty that she may actually love Sidney more than she ever loved James, adding that her preference for Sidney makes
her feel horrible as it leads her to feel kind of unfaithful to James. Though the relationship with James is depicted as having
been very comfortable and happy, she admits that even at the beginning it
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was never anything intense or passionate or horribly exciting (#245) as it now is with Sidney. Though James is characterized
as a wonderful person (#248), the relationship with Sidney feels so much more intense, which makes P feel a little guilty
(#250). Nevertheless, P reassures T that had James not died, she would have been with him forever (#252). By the end of the
hour (the transcript for this segment is not included), P reveals that she went through a period of really resenting James since he
had loved her more than she ever loved him (There was no question about James loving me. Um, I mean I always knew he
loved me more than I loved him) and describes herself as being quite stricken before the wedding, fearing that [she] didn't
love him quite enough. Despite her misgivings, because her father prevailed upon her to follow through with her wedding plans,
she did so and insists that during her marriage she never had any regrets. In the light of the intensity of her current feelings for
Sidney, however, P acknowledges, somewhat sadly, that she might have been right back then: You know, I might have not
loved him as much.
This segment of P's discourse qualifies as an episode of painful self-disclosure (Coupland et al., 1988). Not only does P
fashion a new, less appealing version of her relationship with James as less than perfect (never anything intense or passionate),
but she also provides a negative assessment of herself (feeling guilty) for having had such long-standing misgivings about
James, especially in contrast to her strong feelings in the present for Sidney. For our purposes, however, what is most striking
about this segment is that accompanying P's painful self-disclosure is the rather prolific use of the disclaimer i don't know.
Now, at first blush, this use of i don't know merely seems to corroborate Freud's (1925) claim that the content of a repressed
image or idea can make its way into consciousness, on condition that it is negated (p. 235). Under this interpretation, the
negative marker is viewed as actually enabling the disclosing process. To explain this seeming paradox, Freud states that with
the help of the symbol of negation, thinking frees itself from the restrictions of repression (p. 236), meaning that, through the act
of negation, the erstwhile repressed content is sufficiently repudiated so as to be able to cross the repression barrier into conscious
awareness.
The problem with this explanation, however, is that the metaphor on which it is basedthought breaking free from the
clutches of
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repressionrests on a binary, or linear, model (Ogden, 1992a) in which the negative marker is viewed as an index repressed
content, which is finally able to emerge into consciousness. According to this way of thinking, the negative marker functions as a
kind of passport for the erstwhile repressed material to gain access to consciousness. The picture that emerges is one in which
heretofore hidden, repressed material, or an aspect of P's interior self, finally emerges. Within this romanticist model of the self
(Gergen, 1991), the belief in a single truththe deep interior selfis accepted a priori.
We suggest, instead, that this passage is better understood in terms of a dialectical model of the sort proposed by Ogden
(1992a, b). According to Ogden (1992a), the subject that is constructed through the psychoanalytic process is dialectically
constituted, meaning that it comes into being through the dialectical interplay of consciousness and unconsciousness (p. 517).
That is, the distinct mode of subjectivity that develops is one that emerges through a process in which both systems create,
preserve and negate the other; each stands in a dynamic ever-changing relationship to the other (p. 517). In Ogden's view,
Freud's formulations that bear on the subject are often obscured by his reliance on goal-directed, ego-centered linear models (e.g.,
from unconscious to conscious, pleasure principle to reality principle, primary process to secondary process), which lead to an
essentialist construal of the subject (the ego) in terms of the dominance of rational, conscious thought processes. Instead, Ogden
ventures a new, more subtle reading of Freud based on his belief in the radical nature of the psychoanalytic project, i.e., the
notion that the experiencing subject is simultaneously constituted and decentered from itself by means of the negating and
preserving dialectical interplay of consciousness and unconsciousness (p. 518).
The picture that emerges from Ogden's account is one that recognizes the possibility of variations in perspectives and thus
allows for the coexistence of two (or more) disparate, even contradictory, forms of experience (see also Ogden, 1986). In line
with this relatively more, if you will, postmodern formulation, we suggest that the target occurrences of i don't know function as
more than just negative operators whose purpose is to disguise the entry of the repressed into consciousness. Rather, the
continued use of this device indicates the on-line process of shifting between perspectives and, thus, that work is being done on
the
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self. Indeed, our reason for referring to this type of use as the groping use is to counter the very tempting assumption that P's
disclosure in this passage represents the final, heretofore hidden truth about her relationship with James, which should now
replace the earlier versions. Instead, according to the reading being put forth here, the use of i don't know in this passage serves
as an index that P is in the process of shifting from one perspective to another where the different perspectives are not wholly
commensurate, yet neither can they be viewed as false. Accordingly, the prolific use of i don't know gives the impression of a
struggle within the self and suggests that P is dealing with conflicting states of consciousness or, in more textual terms, the
movement between different voices of the self.
In support of this interpretation, note that the majority of occurrences of i don't know in this segment are not explicitly
dialogic; they do not occur as direct responses to the therapist's inquiry as in the first example. Nevertheless, despite the absence
of overt dialogue, because of its association with a question-answer format, we suggest that the use of i don't know retains the
status of a rejoinder whether or not the speaker is directly responding to the other. In Bakhtin's (1981) terms, the use of i don't
know functions as a marker that is internally dialogic and thus is directed as a rejoinder to, or comment on, something outside
its own use.
Hence, the use of i don't know in this passage can be viewed as one side of an intrapsychic dialogue in which one part of P's
self responds to material that is coming up in another part of P's self in response to the earlier request by T. Specifically, it is as if
the prefabricated good-girl side of P (that part of P who remains loyal to the unconscious fantasy of being a devoted wife and
obediant daughter) attempts to push away the questioning, open-to-a-new-experience side of P (that part of P who has been
resentful toward James for not being the passionate lover she wanted, and who is now finding delight in her new relationship
with Sidney, as well as vindication for her misgivings about James [I might have been right]). In other words, once again, the
use of i don't know presupposes a split within the self in which, to use G. Lakoff's (1992) terminology, P-qua-reflective Subject
evaluates the experiences of P-qua-experiencing Self and simultaneously invites and disavows the Self's experience.
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Indeed, we suggest that, at this point in her therapy, a definitive version (or resolution of the conflicting versions) of P's
relationship with James is beyond her grasp. Therefore, not having worked out an integrated version of the relationship based on
an interaction of the different perspectiveswhat Burke (1945) calls a perspective of perspectivesP adopts various
procedures to move from one perspective to another and hence speaks with a fragmented voice. Among these different
procedures are the strategies enacted through the use of i don't know: blocking off before disclosing, cutting off disclosure, and
groping. Each of these different strategies is based on the existence of unresolved conflict that is expressed at the level of
discourse through the method of juxtaposition, that is, incommensurable versions that are juxtaposed, thus giving rise to sharp
discontinuities in the representation of self and other. On the basis of various theories of pathological grief (Freud, 1917; Parkes
and Weiss, 1983; Horowitz, 1990), P's mode of juxtaposing opposing contents without an attempt at synthesis can be viewed as
an index of a lack of resolution of preexistent (to the death) relationship conflict. Once a level of integration is attained, which
involves accepting the different versions of her own emotional experience with Jamesrather than striving for a single, unified
account, the dialectic of disclosure and disavowal (enacted through the use of i don't know) can be replaced by a less fragmented
mode of presentation. In other words, once a metanarrative is developed on the basis of the recognition of local/partial versions,
the use of i don't know to signal absent presence will no longer be required.
In summary, in this passage, the use of i don't know functions as an index of the analytic stancewhat we have been calling
analytic subjectivity. At this point, the focus of P's gaze is reflexive: it is directed to an aspect of her own experience. As such,
P takes her self as the object of scrutiny and the character of her narrative. We suggest that all nonliteral uses of i don't know in
the therapy context follow suit: that is, the use of i don't know is mediated by an awareness of self-as-subject and self-as-object.
Moreover, it is only because P has some prescient awareness of the four demand characteristics presented (i.e., that she is
supposed to know (I), to reflect on and evaluate her own behaviors (II), to figure out their deeper meanings (III), and to figure out
their personal meanings (IV)) that i don't know is used as a
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means of acknowledging these demands, each of which requires the separation of self-as-object from self-as-subject.
Conclusions
The point of departure for this research has been both formal and interpretive: though the empirical analysis focuses on the
use of a single formal device, our intent has been to interpret its use as a means of orienting to and struggling with the very
assumptions-qua-demand characteristics that structure the context. Our interest in the context of analytic therapy stems from two
sources. First, when we examine studies within the past two decades on the relation of language, or any other type of socially
organized activity, to context in various social science disciplines, what we see is a trend toward more interactive and dialogically
based descriptions of context, as well as more contextually situated descriptions of the target event being studied. Rather than
being viewed as simply a static backdrop to a particular focal event, context is viewed as a frame that pulls for the occurrence of
certain events and provides the resources for their appropriate interpretation (Duranti and Goodwin, 1992).
Hence, with respect to the problem of genre analysisWhat sets psychoanalytically oriented therapy (or therapeutic
discourse) apart from other modes of therapy (or other modes of discourse)?we have tried to approach this problem through
an analysis of certain dimensions of the context. In particular, a set of four assumptions have been presented that, we claim,
constitute the core of psychodynamic therapy and that end up structuring the types of interventions that are made and thus,
ultimately, the patient's mode of response, including (a) the patient's way of understanding his or her distress as a problem of the
self requiring a sustained effort at self-inspection and self-investigation, as well as (b) the transference. Given their role in
organizing the context, the assumptions are referred to as demand characteristics of the analytic context.
Four such demand characteristics were proposed: (I) it is better to know than not to know; (II) it is important to observe and
reflect on oneself; (III) there is more to the story than meets the eye; and (IV) it is necessary to get to the level of personal
significance when interpreting problematic forms of
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behavior. These assumptions are not intended to be an exhaustive list. For example, no mention is made of the various
assumptions about the asymmetry of knowledge and power that play a role in structuring the various nonreciprocal aspects of the
psychodynamic encounter (e.g., the fact that the therapist has authority in interpreting the meaning of the patient's behavior, but
not vice versa; see R. Lakoff, 1990). Instead, we have narrowed our focus to those assumptions which are claimed to play a role
in bringing about the self-reflexive analytic stance. It was proposed that, on the basis of these assumptions, the therapist
intervenes in such a way that induces the patient to turn her attention to the vicissitudes of her fantasied emotional life. Indeed,
our interest in the response marker i don't know is precisely due to its putative role in helping to carry out the therapeutic task as
defined by these assumptions. In other words, our claim is that the patient's use of i don't know is a means of acknowledging,
responding to, and wrestling with the therapist's indirect requests to examine him or her self.
The second source of our interest in the context of psychotherapy derives from the shifts within the field of psychoanalysis
itself. Not only has the prescriptive claim that the therapist should function as a mirror been shown to be an inadequate
characterization of the therapist's real mode of involvement (an attempt to banish countertransference), but the corresponding
depiction of the context as neutral has also been exposed as an ideological myth produced to counter the charge of suggestion.
Accordingly, a new point of view has emerged that takes the therapy context as fundamental: in particular, various aspects of the
therapist's personal presence (Hoffman, 1983) have been acknowledged as formative in the client's experience. According to
the social-constructivist view, the transference itself is no longer conceived as a stream of experience going on in the patient
which is divorced to a significant extent from the immediate impact of the therapist's personal presence (p. 391). Instead, the
therapist's personal presence is taken as the starting point for understanding and interpreting the patient's subjective experience,
even the types of transferences that develop.
In this paper, we have attempted to expand the social constructivist paradigm to include another dimension of the context,
namely, a set of assumptions about unconscious mental processes and the nature of psychological distress which the analytically
trained therapist brings to
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the encounter which structures her mode of intervention and the patient's mode of response. Rather than focus on the way these
assumptions impact the transference (though we believe they must), our claim has been that they play a fundamental role in
inducing the patient to adopt a self-reflexive stancethe stance of analytic subjectivity.
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- 665 -
Appendix A
Therapy Session #1 Original Version: Units 1-55.
P:
(1) You're wired.
T:
(2) A totally strange experience. (3) Um.
P:
(4) (laugh)
T:
(5) The evaluator talked to me some about you. Told me something about you, and I've seen some bits and pieces of
your interviews with him so I have, uh, kind of an overall idea of what's happened and -
P:
(6) Okay.
T:
(7) What you've talked about and what you've tr- struggled with, although I don't have all the details of it.
P:
(8) Mm-hm.
T:
(9) But, uh, I am starting from that point so we don't have to start from scratch -
P:
(10) Okay.
T:
(11) On it.
(12) Where shall we begin?
P:
(13) You tell me.
T:
(14) Well, how are things going?
P:
(15) Um, I think relatively well. (16) Um, I still, uh, cry at the drop of a hat unexpectedly over things. Um (pause) You
know, just, uh, the slightest little thing will set me off when I least expect it. (17) (pause) Still depressed.
T:
(18) Uh-huh.
P:
(19) Um, sleeping hasn't improved any.
T:
(20) Maybe we should take a minute to - and talk about this whole set up and (laugh)
P:
(21) Mm-hm.
T:
(22) What you think of it and how you feel about the whole thing, because it is kind of a strange way, you know, to do
therapy.
P:
(23) Mm-hm, mm-hm.
T:
(24) And it is an unusual situation.
P:
(25) Yeah.
- 666 -
T:
(26) Uh, I just kind of wondered what your own reactions are to it, uh.
P:
(27) Well, I haven't had much therapy to compare it with.
T:
(28) Mm-hm.
P:
(29) So, um, uh, um, I've you know tried it a few times and not very successfully.
(3) Um, I don't know. it doesn't bother me.
T:
(31) Well, you're one up on me -
P:
(32) (laugh)
T:
(33) Or maybe you've had (laugh) a little more experience than I have.
P:
(34) My being hooked up to it doesn't bother me. (35) Seeing you hooked up to it seems a little strange.
T:
636) How so? What?
P:
(37) Well, I just, the evaluator didn't have to g- wasn't wired like that so
T:
(38) Right, right.
P:
(39) It, uh, you know it just seems a little uh funny to see you sitting there all wired up. (40) But -
T:
(41) Uh-huh, uh-huh. It it would be.
P:
(42) I'm sure I'll get used to it.
T:
(43) Yeah. Makes it seem more like an experimental setup or?
P:
(44) Yeah. Yeah.
T:
(45) Yeah. well, I think, I think we'll have to try to let the mechanics of it not bother us too much. (46) But I think if, you
know, if thoughts or feelings or ideas or reactions to - to the whole arrangement comes up the -
P:
(47) Mm-hm.
T:
(48) The wiring, the cameras, the situation -
P:
(49) Mm-hm.
T:
(50) The experimental process that -
P:
(51) Mm-hm.
T:
(52) That's something that we should talk about too as we go along.
P:
(53) Okay.
T:
(54) And make that fair game for us also.
P:
(55) Mm-hm. Okay.
- 667 -
Appendix B
Therapy Sessions #1 Altered versions of units 29-30.
P:
(29) So um, uh, um, I've you know tried it a few times and not very successfully. (30) Um, [0] It doesn't bother me.
P:
(29) So um, uh, um, I've, you know, tried it a few times and not very successfully. (30) um, Gee! It doesn't bother me.
P:
(29) So um, uh, um, I've you know tried it a few times and not very successfully. (30) um, Let me see! It doesn't bother
me.
P:
(29) So um, uh, um, I've you know tried it a few times and not very successfully. (30) um, Well, It doesn't bother me.
P:
(29) So um, uh, um, I've you know tried it a few times and not very successfully. (30) um, Screw you! It doesn't bother
me.
Appendix C
T:
(176) How old are your children now?
P:
(177) Timothy just had his third birthday and Sue will be six soon.
T:
(178) Uh-huh.
P:
(179) So, I have a long haul ahead of me.
T:
(180) Yeah. Yeah. They're young.
P:
(181) Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
T:
(182) How are they doing?
P:
(183) Timothy's doing real well, um, he was only you know eighteen months old when James was killed so he doesn't
remember him or uh -
T:
(184) He really has no personal memories -
P:
(185) No.
T:
(186) Of him.
- 668 -
P:
(187) No.
T:
(188) Yeah.
P:
(189) He seems for some, I mean he knows when he sees his picture that that's daddy.
T:
(190) Mm-hm.
P:
(191) Um but that's I'm sure just from repeating it over the last year and a half.
T:
(192) Mm-hm.
P:
(193) Um, Sue, she's doing okay. (194) She still misses him horribly. still talks about him a lot, uh, but she - she doesn't
keep it in, I mean she talks about it.
T:
(196) What does - what does she say? What does she bring up?
P:
(197) Oh, she's just, you know, she came home the other day and said one of the kid's daddies had picked him up from
school today and made her really sad. (198) She wished her daddy could pick her up from school sometimes and you
know just things like that. (199) It seems like every day she catches me off guard with something.
T:
(200) Mm-hm.
P:
(201) Um.
T:
(202) Does it kind of get to you when she comes up with stuff like that?
P:
(203) Well, yeah. She made me a picture the other day and she had put, wrote on it to mommy and daddy, I love you,
Sue, you know, she still, she draws, when she draws pictures she always still includes him.
T:
(204) Mm-hm.
P:
(205) Um, I don't know, she still just misses him a lot.
T:
(206) Yeah.
P:
(207) But it doesn't seem to be causing her any real serious problems. (208) In the beginning she did go through a
period of being just horribly angry and difficult and mean. (209) And um, you know, I didn't know if it was just being
five or if it was you know a result of all this. (210) And we went to um, she got a little bit of counseling and - and then it
seemed to go away. (211) I don't know if it was just something she had to work through or what. (212) But anyway it
um, now she seems just to be a pretty typical kid.
- 669 -
T:
(213) Mm-hm.
P:
(214) Who misses - still misses her daddy.
T:
(215) Mm-hm.
P:
(216) She um, she gravitates to other men, other, when she goes to uh friends' houses, they tell me that, the mothers will
tell me that she, if the dad's home, you know, she's - kind of hovers around him a lot or -
T:
(217) Mm-hm. Likes to kind of hang out with uh -
P:
(218) Yeah.
T:
(219) With daddies.
P:
(220) Mm-hm, and another friend came over the other day and I heard the first thing she said to him was, So how's
your dad?
T:
(221) Hm.
P:
(222) Yeah. uh. So she's - she feels a real loss.
T:
(223) Yeah. It sounds like it's very much, as you said, it's very much out in the open for her -
P:
(224) Yeah.
T:
(225) Which -
P:
(226) Mm-hm.
T:
(227) I would think would be a good thing on the whole.
Appendix D
T:
(207) Well, I can see you feeling some of the sadness. (208) Can you -
P:
(208) Yeah. (cry)
T:
(210) Try to put it into words?
P:
(211) Um. Oh I don't know. It's real conflicting. I mean I feel happy just because I do love Sidney terribly. Um and
just sad that I'm going to be someone else's wife. (214) I mean it's - it's just overwhelming to think I'm not going to
be PQ anymore. (215) I'm not going to be - I mean I'm just it's a - it's a big change. (216) It's kind of the way I felt
when James died. I felt like my identity had changed drastically. (217) And now it's -
- 670 -
T:
(218) Mm-hm.
P:
(219) Going to change again. (cry)
T:
(220) Mm-hm.
P:
(221) And - I don't know. Somehow I feel like I'm getting a little lost in the shuffle. (222) I don't know. And I just
never I mean I never dreamed I would be anybody else. (223) (sigh) I even feel a little guilty because sometimes I
think maybe I love Sidney more than I did James.
T:
(224) Mm-hm.
P:
(225) And that makes me feel horrible.
T:
(226) Why?
P:
(227) Why do I feel horrible?
T:
(228) Yeah.
P:
(229) I don't know. I feel kind of unfaithful.
T:
(230) Uh-huh.
P:
(231) Um I never questioned my love for James when he was alive.
T:
(232) Yeah.
P:
(233) I mean it was just there. (234) But my feelings for Sidney seem, I don't know, more intense.
T:
(235) Mm-hm.
P:
(236) And uh, I don't know, just it's different. (237) And it makes me wonder what it was.
(238) I don't know, maybe you just love people differently. I - I don't quite understand it, but I know it feels different.
T:
(240) Yeah.
P:
(241) It's certainly, I don't know, it's somehow more exciting.
(242) James and I were just very comfortable and happy and -
T:
(243) Mm-hm.
P:
(244) Um but - and it was that way from the very beginning. I mean it was, you know, I don't know, we just sort of
started dating and kind of, he grew on me. (245) And you know that was never anything terribly intense or passionate
or horribly exciting.
T:
(246) Mm-hm.
P:
(247) I just loved him. (248) I don't know. I thought he was terribly, you know he was a wonderful person. (249) But
this feels so much more intense. (250) And it makes me feel a little guilty.
T:
(251) Mm-hm.
- 671 -
P:
(252) Although I - you know if James hadn't been killed I would have I'm sure been with him forever.
T:
(253) Mm-hm. But you kind of feel unfaithful in your heart?
P:
(254) Mm-hm. Yeah. Sidney's mother was telling me that, of course, she's terribly biased thinking her son is the best
thing that ever walked the earth. (255) But you know she was saying how it was unfortunate that my husband had to be
killed, but this is the way obviously it was meant to be. (256) I don't know, it made me feel funny.
- 672 -
Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Gerhardt, J. and Stinson, C. (1995). I don't know: Resistance or Groping for Words?: The Construction of Analytic
Subjectivity. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 5: 619-672

Gerhardt, J. and Stinson, C. (1995) - "I Don't Know" Resistance or Groping For Words The Construction of Analytic Subjectivity.

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(1995).

Psychoanalytic Dialogues 5: 619-672

I don't know: Resistance or Groping for Words?: The Construction of Analytic

Four Assumptions-Qua-Demand Characteristics of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

2. It is Important to Observe and Reflect on Oneself

3. There is More to the Story than Meets the Eye

Rose, N. (1989), Governing the Soul. London: Routledge.

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