“Help Me Without Changing Me!”: Intellectual Armor, the Fantasy of Painless Change, and the Ritual of Sabotage in the Analytic Space

“Help Me Without Changing Me!”: Intellectual Armor, the Fantasy of Painless Change, and the Ritual of Sabotage in the Analytic Space

Author: Elena Nechaeva —

psychologist, psychoanalyst

In practice since: 2007

Author’s website: neacoach.ru

Contact: nechaevacoach@mail.ru

Yekaterinburg, November 16, 2025

Dear colleagues!

This English translation is, in a sense, an experiment. I do not speak English myself. Fortunately, artificial intelligence now exists—and I turned to it for help. I am unable to verify how nuanced, precise, or clinically appropriate the translation is, but I sincerely hope for the best!

— Elena Nechaeva

Introduction

The contemporary psychoanalytic consulting room increasingly encounters a patient who does not come with a complaint, but with a request — precise, well-considered, sometimes even elegantly formulated.

This patient is capable of reflection and can talk about themselves for hours without ever touching upon their inner self.

They are “very intelligent,” “think in an interesting way,” “well-educated” — and precisely in this lies their defense.

Not in silence, not in hysteria, not in amnesia, but in excessive speech that bears no trace of the unconscious.

Such a patient does not flee from analysis — they enter it, but on their own terms: “Help me immediately, but painlessly.

Offer me options I will like. Don’t ask questions that might traumatize me.”

It is precisely this configuration of resistance that we encounter more and more frequently — especially within short-term formats, framed contracts, and the cultural expectation that psychological help must be effective, measurable, and, above all, comfortable.

In this context, a particular form of analytic sabotage emerges: not a blunt rupture, not a silent departure, but a ritualized presence — session after session, following the same script:

— What would you like to talk about today?

— I don’t know.

— Would you like to stay in silence for a while?

— No, let’s talk!

— About what?

— I don’t know…

This dialogue is not a refusal of analysis. It mimics it.

It creates an illusion of work: there are words, there is time, there is an analyst.

But there is no contact — because contact demands risk, and risk is forbidden here.

Instead, we see:

• rationalization as a substitute for genuine emotional experience;
• the fantasy of painless change replacing true transformation;
• and repetition functioning not as a path to working-through, but as its blockage.

This article does not present a clinical case.

Rather, it offers a theoretical reflection on three interrelated phenomena of contemporary analytic resistance:

• rationalization as a defense against authentic contact;
• the pathological demand for “painless” help, in which any pressure on the ego’s boundaries is perceived as aggression;
• the ritualized opening of the session as a form of unconscious sabotage, where repetition serves not integration, but obstruction.

1. Rationalization as a Substitute for Contact: When “Intelligence” Becomes the Mask of the Unconscious

Rationalization is one of the most “polite” defenses.

It does not draw attention like projection or repression.

It does not provoke anxiety in others the way hysteria or paranoia might.

On the contrary, it creates an impression of maturity, logical coherence, and even intellectual superiority.

A patient who actively employs rationalization is often perceived as an “ideal analysand”: punctual, well-mannered, talkative — yet analytic work fails to progress.

Why?

The answer lies in the fact that rationalization, especially in its hypertrophied form, does not interpret the unconscious — it replaces it.

Instead of allowing affect to emerge, instead of tolerating uncertainty, ambiguity, or embarrassment, the patient offers an explanation.

The explanation is always ready, always logical—and always remains on the surface.

This is not work with the material; it is its neutralization.

Freud, when introducing the concept of rationalization, emphasized its role as “disguised repression” (Freud, 1908).

However, in contemporary practice — especially when working with highly intellectualized subjects — rationalization acquires an additional function: it creates the illusion of analytic work without actual engagement.

The patient talks about themselves — but not from themselves.

They reason about their feelings — but do not experience them.

They may even acknowledge their defenses — but only as objects of external observation, never as the living fabric of their own inner conflict.

This pattern becomes especially pronounced when the analyst, impressed by the patient’s “intelligence,” inadvertently enters into a dialogue on the level of rational discourse.

It is easy to overlook a crucial point: intellectual insight is not equivalent to psychic readiness.

As Bion noted, there is a fundamental distinction between K (knowledge) and O (ultimate reality, “being,” the “thing-in-itself”) (Bion, 1962).

The patient may strive to accumulate K — explanations, theories, interpretations—precisely to avoid an encounter with O, with that which cannot be symbolized and which evokes anxiety, shame, or dread.

In this sense, rationalization becomes a tool of avoidance, not understanding.

The irony is that the analyst may unwittingly become a partner in this avoidance.

In an effort “not to frighten” the patient, “not to pressure,” “not to provoke resistance” — especially in the early stages — the analyst may mistake the patient’s performance for genuine analytic work.

They begin to “show their cards”: offering interpretations, connecting material, constructing hypotheses — in the hope that an intellectual “Aha!” will serve as a bridge to emotional breakthrough, often perceiving the patient as a “peer” or “fully capable of understanding.”

But if the defense is too strong, this bridge leads nowhere: the patient accepts the interpretation— and immediately disarms it by absorbing it into their rational system.

Thus, analytic understanding becomes yet another element of defense, not a path toward change.

This dynamic is particularly relevant when there is a perceived “biographical similarity” between analyst and patient — shared education, profession, or cultural background — creating an illusion of closeness and mutual understanding.

The analyst may mistakenly assume the patient “should understand,” “is capable of insight,” or “is ready to work.”

Yet readiness for analysis is not a matter of intellect, but a matter of desire to confront what hurts.

And when desire is absent, intellect becomes its substitute.

Within this context, the recurring session script — “I don’t know… but let’s talk!” — takes on new meaning.

This is not mere passivity or confusion.

It is an active refusal of the subject position, disguised as cooperation.

The patient does not want to choose a topic because choice is an expression of desire—and desire is risk.

Instead, they delegate initiative to the analyst, only to reject what is offered: “You suggested the wrong topic.”

Thus, rationalization merges with acting out, creating a closed loop in which analysis is mimicked— but never truly occurs.

Breaking this cycle requires not greater explanatory skill from the analyst, but the courage to tolerate silence, to allow uncertainty, and to resist the temptation to “fill the void.”

For it is precisely in that void—between “I don’t know” and “let’s talk” — that what the patient fears to name resides.

2. “You’re Pressuring Me”: The Fantasy of Painless Change and the Pathology of the Therapeutic Request

The phrase “You’re pressuring me,” which may be uttered on a final session, is not merely a manifestation of transference or defensive reaction. It is a symptom of the era.

It echoes not only an individual protest against the necessity of change, but also a broader cultural demand: “Help me — but don’t touch me.”

This request, increasingly common in analytic practice, expresses a deep contradiction of contemporary subjectivity: the desire for change without transformation, for healing without trauma, for freedom without responsibility.

Such a demand is no accident. It emerges within a cultural field where suffering is increasingly viewed not as an inherent dimension of human existence, but as a technical malfunction to be repaired.

Psychotherapy, in turn, is more and more often positioned as a service — efficient, short-term, and outcome-oriented.

The client becomes a consumer whose expectations are shaped not by clinical reality, but by market logic: “I paid — I have a right to a solution.”

In this context, any reminder that unconscious work requires time, pain, uncertainty, and even boredom is perceived as a breach of contract.

Psychoanalysis, however, has never promised comfort.

On the contrary, Freud explicitly stated that therapy is not a path to happiness, but a path toward tolerating reality.

Yet today’s demand replaces this task: instead of learning to live with inner conflicts, the patient wants them removed.

And if the analyst reminds them of the existence of these conflicts — especially if this reminder comes not as a solution, but as a question — they are instantly cast as an aggressor: “You’re pressuring me.”

This fantasy of “painless change” is closely linked to what Jacques Lacan called the craving for “guaranteed meaning.”

The contemporary subject, having lost faith in grand narratives, still demands from the Other —especially from the analyst — certainty, clarity, and predictability.

They do not wish to encounter what Bion termed “thoughtlessness” — that state in which thinking has not yet formed but is already emerging.

Instead, they want ready-made interpretations that can be accepted or rejected — but not lived through.

In this sense, the analyst who offers not an answer but a space for questioning is perceived as a source of threat.

This is why even a conscientious attempt by the analyst to continue a theme from the previous session provokes irritation: “You suggested the wrong topic.”

This is not merely resistance — it is a refusal of dialogic space, in which meaning arises jointly.

Instead, the patient demands that the analyst guess their “correct” state — while simultaneously forbidding them to touch what truly hurts.

Interestingly, this demand is often disguised as “cooperation”: “Let’s talk!” — but without any readiness to risk the unpredictable.

It is cooperation on the principle: “I’m participating — but only in what feels safe to me.”

Thus arises a paradoxical form of commitment: the patient remains in analysis yet does everything possible to ensure that nothing changes.

They pay for the analyst’s presence — but not for their intervention.

In this light, the phrase “You’re pressuring me” acquires a double meaning.

On the surface — it is a complaint about boundary violation.

At a deeper level — it is an accusation that the analyst refuses to indulge the fantasy:

• they do not promise an easy solution;
• they do not confirm the illusion of control;
• they do not allow the patient to remain in the zone of “intelligent silence.”

Here, “pressure” is not manipulation — it is simply the presence of the Other as the bearer of the Real.

Thus, the pathology of the request lies not in its content, but in its structure: it is a request that forbids the very process in which it arises.

It demands help while simultaneously canceling the conditions under which help is possible.

The analyst’s task is not to fulfill this request, but to help the patient recognize it as a symptom —a symptom of fear of their own unconscious, of embodiment, of that part of themselves which cannot be contained within the logic of the “intelligent mind.”

3. “I Don’t Know, But Let’s Talk!”: The Session Ritual as a Form of Resistance

Repetition is a central concept in psychoanalysis.

Freud saw in it the key to the repressed: what was not experienced in the past returns in the present as action, symptom, or transference.

However, in contemporary clinical practice we increasingly encounter a different kind of repetition — not as a path toward working-through, but as a mechanism that blocks working-through.

This is precisely the pattern that may recur session after session (except the first), unfolding according to a rigid script:

— What would you like to talk about today?

— I don’t know.

— Would you like to stay in silence for a while?

— No, let’s talk!

— What would you like to discuss?

— I don’t know! Why are you asking? I don’t know.

— Alright, shall we continue the theme from our last session?

— Yes!

(dialogue follows)

— You suggested the wrong topic.

— And what would have been the right one?

— I don’t know!!

At first glance, this may appear as confusion, hesitation, or even cooperation (“let’s talk!”).

But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear: this is a ritual of sabotage. It is carefully structured, predictable, and stable — just like any defense that has become integrated into psychic organization.

What exactly does this ritual block?

First and foremost, it blocks the possibility of free association.

The analyst’s question — “What would you like to talk about today?” — is not a mere formality.

It is an invitation to assume a subjective position, to express a desire, however vague.

The response “I don’t know” is not an admission of ignorance, but a refusal of desire itself.

It is a defense against the risk of saying something “wrong,” feeling something “unacceptable,” or revealing what cannot be controlled.

Particularly telling is the reaction to the suggestion of silence: “No, let’s talk!”.

In the analytic space, silence is not emptiness — it is a potential field in which something new may emerge.

But for a patient with pronounced alexithymia and fear of affect, silence is a threat: it removes the familiar support of rational speech.

Thus, the patient demands words — any words — just to avoid encountering the inner stillness in which the body, shame, anger, or pain might finally speak.

Another crucial element is the refusal of responsibility for the session’s content.

The patient delegates initiative to the analyst, only to reject the proposed theme immediately: “You suggested the wrong topic.”

This creates a closed paradox: the analyst must not remain silent — but must also not speak “the wrong thing.”

In this dynamic, one can recognize a transference of early relational patterns with figures from whom everything was expected — parents, teachers, or other significant others.

The internal script runs as follows: “You should know what’s wrong with me — but I won’t tell you.

And if you guess incorrectly, I will blame you for your inadequacy.”

Thus, repetition here does not serve to reenact trauma in order to work it through.

Instead, it functions to prevent any inward movement whatsoever.

This is not work with the material—it is its isolation.

Each session begins from zero, accumulating no meaning, forming no continuity.

The patient returns — but continues nothing.

They seem to say: “I’m here — but nothing is happening.”

And it is precisely in this “nothing” that resistance resides.

Moreover, the very fact that the script repeats with such precision indicates its neurotic organization.

This is not chaotic avoidance, but a structured defense — almost a ritual — reminiscent of the obsessive rituals Freud described as attempts to control anxiety through external actions.

Only here, the ritual unfolds in dialogue: not hand-washing, but “let’s talk—but not about that.”

It is important to emphasize: the patient does not necessarily experience this ritual as sabotage.

On the contrary, it may be perceived as a sign of “honesty” or “difficulty in expressing oneself.”

But it is precisely within this “honesty” that the defense hides: the admission “I don’t know” becomes a way to avoid saying “I’m afraid.”

Working with such a pattern demands particular containment from the analyst.

An attempt to “break the ritual” — for example, by persistently remaining silent or insisting the patient choose a topic independently — may trigger an abrupt termination of the process (flight from therapy).

Yet indulging the ritual means participating in its reproduction.

The only viable path is to name the repetition itself—not accusatorily, but with curiosity: “It seems we’ve arrived at this place again.

What happens when you say ‘I don’t know,’ yet ask to talk?”.

Such naming does not guarantee a breakthrough, but it creates an opening.

For the first time in many sessions, the patient may realize that their “stuckness” is not an accident, but a choice — however unconscious.

And to recognize a choice is already the first step toward making a different one.

Conclusion: Resistance as a Distorted Version of Analysis

The three phenomena we have examined — rationalization as a substitute for contact, the fantasy of painless change, and the ritualized sabotage of the session — do not exist in isolation.

Together, they form a contemporary configuration of resistance that is especially characteristic of intellectualized subjects who appear outwardly “ready” for analysis.

Such a patient does not flee from analysis — they enter it, but as one enters a museum: to look, without touching.

They want the unconscious to be explained, but not lived.

They want suffering to be removed, but not digested.

They want the analyst to be all-knowing, but non-intrusive.

This stance is not a simple “refusal” or “unreadiness.”

On the contrary, it demonstrates a complex, almost artistic operation of defense: the patient constructs within the analytic space an imitation of analysis, in which everything is present —time, words, even “work” — except the one essential thing: an encounter with what cannot be contained within the logic of the “intelligent mind.”

In this sense, resistance today often takes the form of paradoxical loyalty: the patient remains faithful to the process precisely in order to destroy it.

This dynamic presents the analyst with an ethical dilemma.

On one hand — there is the temptation to comply: to offer a topic, to avoid silence, to soften interpretations, to “not pressure.”

On the other — there is the risk of being perceived as an aggressor simply for reminding the patient that analysis is not a service, but an encounter with the Real.

In a cultural climate that demands “help without pain,” the figure of the analyst easily becomes an object of accusation: “You’re pressuring me” — because you won’t allow me to remain in the illusion of control.

And yet, it is precisely here that analytic fidelity resides: not in “leading” the patient toward change, but in sustaining a space in which change becomes possible — even if it does not occur here and now, even if the patient leaves before the agreed-upon time.

Sometimes, the mere fact that someone has been allowed to hear: “You don’t have to know. You can be silent. You don’t have to be intelligent”— is already an act of analytic work.

Ultimately, analysis does not guarantee completion.

But it can leave a trace — a prick, a question, a moment of embarrassment.

And if, one day, while sitting with a new specialist, the patient suddenly says not “I don’t know,” but “I’m afraid” — then something, after all, did happen in that seemingly failed analysis.

About the Author

Elena Nechaeva was born, lives, and works in Yekaterinburg. She is the author of books on psychology and psychoanalysis, as well as paintings in the genre of Ural underground art and music videos. She has been practicing as a psychologist and psychoanalyst since 2007, offering in-person sessions in Yekaterinburg and online consultations.

Author’s website: neacoach.ru

Contact: nechaevacoach@mail.ru