REPETITION COMPULSION REVISITED - IMPLICATIONS FOR TECHNIQUE

Freud's repetition compulsion concept is reviewed and examined critica lly. It has been used as an explanatory concept to cover a wide variet y of clinical phenomena similar only in their manifest repetitive qual ity, and it appears frequently in psychoanalytic and psychiatric liter ature. Its relationship to trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder i s Explored. Emphasis is on the detrimental technical legacy of the con cept, which has cast a pessimistic aura of unanalyzability over a wide variety of repetitive phenomena, especially analyzable resistances re lated to aggressive conflicts. We conclude that the repetition compuls ion is an anachronistic concept with detrimental technical implication s and that it should be retired.