Therapeutic neurosis: The need to resist the healing process in psychotherapy

Client resistance to therapy is necessary and needed. In the Freudian view, “optimal resistance” provided therapeutic opportunity to help clients constructively work through issues instead of acting them out inappropriately. Although resistance seems to perpetuate neurotic defenses, successful analysis of resistance is the key to understanding clients' unconscious fears and wishes. As seen by the Bioenergetic analyst, clients' will- power to hold onto their neuroses, their resistance to the healing process, needs to be softened so as to allow full expression of their fears. Fear of life is likened to the wish to die. Resolution of resistance ultimately converts to client ability to live through the pleasure and pain of his/her true life reality.