What is resistance in psychology

What is the resistance to change?

Some call it change, some progress, and there are also some who call it adaptation. Some people develop virtually a fear of change while others are almost addicted at the novelty it implies. The former prefer regularity, predictability and ancient things. Addicted love the novelty, difference and uncertainty.

In any case, life itself is change. Schopenhauer said, “Change is the only thing that can’t be changed”. That is why it is crucial to develop a level of tolerance to change that will allow us to deal with transformations without compromising too much our psychological balance.

What is resistance to individual change?

The concept of resistance to change in organizations is well-known, but resistance to personal change is a less popular idea, though it is equally important.

In psychology, the concept of resistance to change refers to people experiencing an emotional anxiety caused by the prospect of a transformation or change that is taking place.

During the early years of psychology, resistance to individual change was simply analyzed as a motivational problem. Therefore, it was thought that to eliminate this resistance was enough to persuade the persons to motivate themselves.

We now know that when someone resists to change, there are several problematic areas, relating to personality traits, life stories, or the current situation. From this perspective, resistance to personal change is an amazing opportunity to look inside of us.

In fact, we can feel motivated to change, but if something keeps us, like fear, motivation will not be enough to overcome the resistance. That is why a change is always an opportunity to discover oneself.

The cycle of resistance to personal change

Kubler-Ross has proposed an emotional cycle that people follow in mourning cases, but that applies perfectly to any other type of change in life we ​​refuse to accept.

1. Shock phase. It is the state of paralysis or initial block when we first expose ourselves to the perspective of change. In this state we usually do not react, so that other people may think that we have willingly accepted the transformation, but in reality what is happening is that our emotional system has “frozen.” Our rational mind has not yet processed the change and what it means. To the extent that we take it, we can experience an anxiety crisis or other physical reactions.

2. Negative phase. At this stage we deny the change, this implies closing our eyes in front of reality and any evidence that transformation is necessary or is occurring. Normally we continue with our lives, as if nothing had happened, with the naive claim that the need to change disappears. This is because, by grasping to our everyday routines, we recover the feeling of control.

3. Phase of wrath. When we can no longer deny change, the most common thing is to react with anger, frustration, and rage. In this phase, all the feelings repressed during the previous phases emerge. At this stage we also usually ask ourselves “why should this just happen to me?”

4. Phase of negotiation. It is a phase in which we will try to find a way out, although it is usually useless because we are still struggling to change. At this stage we have not yet accepted the change, but we try to find the “way” to avoid it.

5. Phase of depression. At this point we finally accept that change is inevitable. But we do not accept it, and we can react getting depressed or irritatated.

6. Phase of the test. It is a phase where resistance to change is finally disappearing because we realize that we have to react. Then we start looking for realistic solutions and new coping models that fit the reality. At this stage, we begin small experiments that bring us closer to change and allow us to observe it in a new perspective.

7. Phase of acceptance. It is the last stage in which we return to find the balance that was lost with the change. We find and implement new models of adaptive behavior that help us to rebuild our identity in new circumstances.

The 10 resistance-changing factors that keep you trapped in the past

We are aware that change is the only constant in life. However, we want to change and at the same time remain the same, or do the same things. This dichotomy generates resistance, often at an unconscious level.

1. Do not understand that you need to change. In some circumstances we may not have very clear that it is necessary to change, especially if we feel relatively safe and comfortable in our comfort zone. If we think that the things we have done for so many years will continue to work and there are no reasons to change, we oppose to any transformation.

2. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what we do not know and uncertainty is one of the main reasons for resistance to change. As a general rule, we jump into the unknown only if we believe that what awaits us is worth it, but if we are not sure of what we will find, it will be very difficult for us to give up our position where we feel safe and all is relatively under control.

3. Lack of expertise and fear of failure. It is a factor of resistance to change that few people admit but which is the basis of this fear. When we believe we do not have the skills, abilities, or strengths needed to cope with transformation, we often do not recognize it, but we react by resisting to transformation.

4. Attachment to habits. If we have done things in a way for a long time, it will be very difficult to change these models. They are not just habits of behavior, but also ways to relate, think, or feel. This is due, inter alia, to the fact that in our brain there are already “neural motorways” through which these habits run fast, so change requires that we build new ways, and our brain usually tends to apply the law of minimal effort.

5. Imposition. When we perceive that change is imposed by someone and that we have no right to speak, the first reaction is usually the rejection. Most people do not like the imposed changes, so if they are not consulted, the will to change will be minimal.

6. Exhaustion and saturation. In many cases resistance to change is due to the fact that the tolerance level for change has been exceeded; that is, the person has undergone so many transformations that have developed a refusal to them because of exhaustion and saturation.

7. Cognitive dissonance. In some cases, change is a breaking point with some of our beliefs or opinions, which creates a cognitive dissonance that we are unwilling to assume.

8. Poor motivation. Every change always requires the mobilization of certain resources, so if we do not have enough motivation, or if this is not an intrinsic motivation, we will resist that transformation.

9. The wrong time. In many cases, resistance to change is caused by the fact that change comes at a negative moment in life. It may be that the person is going through a difficult situation or has other projects and is not prepared to face another change.

10. Personal predisposition to change. There are personalities more willing to change while others are tied to what they know. Neurotic personalities, with an internal locus of control and low tolerance to ambiguity, are more resistant to change.

Sources:
Oreg, S. (2003). Resistance to change: Developing an individual differences measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 680-693.
Dent, E. B. & Galloway, S. (1999) Challenging “Resistance to Change”. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 35 (1), 25-41.

What Is Resistance Psychology And Can I Benefit from It?

Why do people avoid the very things that can help them the most? You’ve probably observed this phenomenon. A teen’s parents offer to get him tutoring to help with his studies. He knows he needs the help, but he resists the idea. Adults do it, too. Someone signs up for dance classes, thinking it will be a fun way to spend Friday evenings, but when the time comes to leave for the class, they come up with a million excuses for not going. Resistance can also occur in therapy. Because this response is common, it is helpful to understand resistance psychology.

Resistance is both a trait that some people possess in higher degrees and an emotional state that can be observed during therapy. Resistance in psychology refers to any opposition to the therapeutic process. Resistance is a way of pushing back against suggestions, even those that could help you solve mental or emotional health concerns. Sometimes a person tells themselves that they aren’t ready. Maybe they say advice is unfair. Perhaps they explain that the therapist doesn’t understand the whole story. Whatever the form, resistance is a defense of ego on a subconscious level.

Freud’s View On Resistance

While working with his patients, Sigmund Freud developed the theory of resistance. He saw that people in psychoanalysis often avoided the subjects they most needed to face. They dismissed any topic that came too close to memories or emotions that were too uncomfortable. Freud theorized that resistance was a sign of some past trauma hidden in the subconscious that needed to be revealed and dealt with in the present. In Freud’s view, this catharsis would allow the person to experience emotional healing and find greater control over their behavior.

Resistance In Modern Psychology

Resistance in psychology today often refers specifically to resistance while in therapy. When the therapist offers solutions, the client resists considering them. Resistance in talk therapy keeps someone from tackling their issues directly, as they use their therapy sessions to talk only or primarily about the things that are comfortable for them.

Types Of Resistance

Resistance shows up as oppositional behavior that keeps you from reaching your highest potential. Whether in therapy or everyday life, resistance can take many forms.

Memory Lapses

When someone resists dealing with their issues, they may suddenly seem very forgetful. If they’re in therapy, they may forget about appointments. If they begin talking about a difficult subject, they may stop when they get to the hardest part, saying that they can’t remember what happened next. These are not signs of dishonesty, but subconscious avoidance of unwanted information.

Anger

Sometimes, when the therapist gets too close to any subjects the client doesn’t want to talk about, the client becomes angry. Their anger sidetracks the conversation. After that, it can be very hard to get back to that crucial point in the therapeutic process. If the resistance is strong enough, this anger may appear every time the subject comes up. This can even occur in everyday life; a person may get angry if a specific subject is mentioned or if someone offers them help or advice with a touchy subject.

Rewriting History

People may feel distressed when thinking of their past. They know that a part of their therapy is dealing with those old memories. Without even realizing it, they may change the facts to present a more acceptable picture of what happened long ago.

Recalling Facts Without The Impact

In some cases, people do remember the facts of past trauma quite well. They can tell all the important details of what happened in their past. However, they don’t recall the way the event impacted them, then or in the present. Instead, they remain stoic, not displaying any behavior that would show that the event was difficult for them. Even though the event may have been so traumatic that it changed the course of their life, they may tell the story as if it were a news report about something that happened to a stranger.

Being Defensive

If your therapist asks you a question and you suddenly feel under attack, the truth may be that you’re feeling resistance. You may argue your case, citing reasons or excuses for your behavior, but your therapist probably isn’t saying anything negative at all. It’s your ego’s defenses, trying to keep you from feeling unworthy.

Distrusting The Therapist

Some individuals come to distrust their therapists after the therapy reaches a critical point. They may have felt perfectly comfortable with their therapist at first, but they began to resist the process when it became too difficult.

Being Confused

Confusion is another way to resist therapy. Remember that resistance happens unconsciously. As such, when the process becomes too difficult, your mind may become cloudy and confused. This is very hard to overcome because you aren’t thinking clearly. The best thing to do is to stick with therapy, so your therapist can guide you through it.

Being Dependent

It may sound counterintuitive, but people often resist therapy by becoming dependent on their therapist. Instead of facing their problems directly, they leave all the decisions to the therapist. They have trouble waiting for their next appointment, and they may contact their therapist between appointments, trying to get instructions on how to live their daily lives.

As their dependence grows, it becomes a different problem to deal with. The uncomfortable feelings are set aside while the therapy focuses first on breaking the dependent behaviors.

Being Bored

Some people find themselves behaving as if they’re bored in therapy, so they look for excitement in their daily lives to relieve their boredom. They may tell their therapist dramatic stories just to see their reaction. They may yawn or stare blankly during sessions, not engaging in therapy at all. This feeling of boredom can be a cover for intense feelings that are difficult to accept or deal with.

Transference

Resistance and transference in psychology often go together. Transference means that you transfer uncomfortable feelings from one person to another. In therapy, clients often transfer their feelings about a person who hurt them in the past to their therapist. This type of transference happens because trust that your therapist won’t hurt you. You can say the things you’ve wanted to say for years, knowing that you’re safe. In this case, transference is positive and can bring about catharsis and relief.

You can also experience transference when you put the positive feelings you have about a loved one onto your therapist. For example, someone who has lost a beloved sister may transfer the feelings of trust to the therapist. This can be helpful because the person feels very comfortable facing difficult issues.

There’s another type of transference that isn’t so helpful. Sometimes, a client transfers romantic sexual feelings about someone else onto their therapist. This damages the therapeutic process. If the client can’t put these feelings aside, they may need to switch to a different therapist. However, you don’t have to worry about accidentally transferring inappropriate feelings to your therapist as long as you respect boundaries when your therapist points them out. Therapists are well aware of the need for appropriate boundaries with their clients and can guide you in this matter.

Drawbacks Of Resistance Psychology

Resistance is natural; everyone behaves in resistant ways. However, when resistance happens in therapy, it can have some negative consequences.

Lengthens The Process

Resistance can cause the therapy to last much longer than it would have lasted. That’s not to say that the therapy can’t still be successful. Even if you’re resistant in therapy, the right therapist can guide you to a better understanding of your resistance. Then, you can deal with your problems in a more direct manner.

Unchecked resistance, however, can keep you from ever facing the issues that are affecting your mental and emotional health and holding you back from reaching your highest potential. If you don’t work to overcome your resistance, you may be in a holding pattern that never ends and never gives you any positive results.

May Result To An End To Therapy

Extreme resistance can put a halt to therapy. You may drop out, telling yourself it’s because you don’t trust your therapist. Angry behavior can create a safety issue for your therapist, in which case your regular sessions may have to end. Unhealthy transference can also create a rift in the therapeutic relationship that can’t be healed. If you resist therapy in extreme ways, you may have to find another therapist.

Is It Possible To Avoid Resistance?

Since everyone experiences resistance, is it even reasonable to think you can avoid it? You probably can’t avoid something that occurs in your subconscious. However, you can work to overcome it—at least, during therapy sessions—to help you make progress.

Self-awareness is the key to avoiding unhealthy resistance. It isn’t easy to identify your resistant behaviors. However, you can request that your therapist point them out; you need to be open to the possibility that their observations might be more accurate than your own. If you’re diligent in discovering your resistant behaviors, you can consciously set them aside, so you can work on the issues that are holding you back from mental and emotional health.

Consider Online Therapy

Even if you recognize that you’re resistant to taking steps that would improve your life, you still may need help overcoming that resistance. Talking to a counselor is a good first step to combating counterproductive resistance and helping you deal with your problems more directly. Talk therapy has never been more available or mentionable; especially with societal challenges like public health crises and economic uncertainty, more people than ever are taking advantage of mental healthcare support. If you would like to pursue therapy but don’t know how to start or how to fit it into your life, BetterHelp may be the right fit for you.

BetterHelp’s network of licensed counselors can be accessed from the comfort and privacy of your own home. You’ll be matched with a therapist who is best suited to your needs, and you can make appointments for your counseling that fit your schedule, through the medium that is most comfortable for you: video chats, phone calls, emails, or text messages. Here are some reviews of BetterHelp counselors from people who have worked through resistance issues in therapy.

Counselor Reviews

Kathleen has been the most receptive and genuinely caring therapist I’ve met with. She is attentive to everything I say and provides amazing tools, that are unique to me, that help me through the current situations I am struggling with. She is able to be supportive yet stern when I become resistant to certain assignments, which I desperately need, in order for me to do the difficult work but in a loving and accepting environment. 10/10 would recommend this wonderful human being as a therapist! https://www.betterhelp.com/kathleen-whipple/

Resistance is a common, identifiable, and treatable problem. There’s no shame in showing resistance. The important thing is that you take steps to overcome it, so you can move forward as the best version of yourself. With the right tools and guidance, you can move on from the past in healthy ways. Take the first step today.

Resistance

Sigmund Freud

Freud first used the term «resistance» to designate the unwillingness to recall repressed memories to consciousness.

Treatment

Since psychoanalytic treatment involves precisely such recollection, the term soon came to denote all those obstacles that arise during the treatment and interrupt its progress:

«Whatever disturbs the progress of the work isa resistance.» [1]

Resistance manifests itself in all the ways in which the subject breaks the «fundamental rule» of saying everything that comes into his mind.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Though present in Freud’s work from the beginning, the concept of resistance began to play an increasingly important part in psychoanalytic theory as a result of the decreasing efficacy of analytic treatment in the decade 1910-20.

As a consequence of this, ego-psychology placed increasing importance on overcoming the patient’s resistances.

Lacan’s Criticism

Lacan is very critical of this shift in emphasis, arguing that it easily leads to an «inquisitorial» style of psychoanalysis which sees resistance as based on the «fundamental ill will» of the patient. [2]

Lacan argues that this overlooks the structural nature of resistance and reduces analysis to an imaginary dual relation. [3]

Lacan does accept that psychoanalytic treatment involves «analysis of resistances,» but only on condition that this phrase is understood correctly, in the sense of «knowing at what level the answer should be pitched.» [4]

In other words, the crucial thing is that the analyst should be able to distinguish between interventions that are primarily orientated towards the imaginary and those that are orientated towards the symbolic, and know which are appropriate at each moment of the treatment.

Structural Resistance

In Lacan’s view, resistance is not a question of the ill will of the analysand; resistance is structural, and it is inherent in the analytic process.

This is due, ultimately, to a structural «incompatibility between desire and speech.» [5]

Therefore there is a certain irreducible level of resistance which can never be «overcome».

«After the reduction of the resistances, there is a residue which may be what is essential.» [6]

Suggestion

This irreducible «residue» of resistance is «essential» because it is the respect for this residue that distinguishes psychoanalysis from suggestion.

Psychoanalysis respects the right of the patient to resist suggestion and indeed values that resistance.

«When the subject’s resistance opposes suggestion, it is only a desire to maintain the subject’s desire. As such it would have to be placed in the ranks of positive transference.» [7]

Analyst and Analysand

However, Lacan points out that while the analyst cannot, and should not try to, overcome all resistance, he can minimise it, or at least avoid exacerbating it. [8]

He can do this by recognizing his own part in the analysand’s resistance, for «there is no other resistance to analysis than that of the analyst himself.» [9]

This is to be understood in two ways:

The resistance of the analysand can only succeed in obstructing the treatment when it responds to and/or evokes a resistance on the part of the analyst, i.e. when the analyst is drawn into the lure of resistance (as Freud was drawn into the lure of Dora’s resistance).

«The patient’s resistance is always your own, and when a resistance succeeds it is because you [the analyst] are in it up to your neck, because you understand.» [10]

Thus the analyst must follow the rule of neutrality and not be drawn into the lures set for him by the patient.

Interpretation

It is the analyst who provokes resistance by pushing the analysand:

«There is no resistance on the part of the subject.» [11]

Psychoanalytic treatment works on the principle that by not forcing the patient, resistance is reduced to the irreducible minimum.

Thus the analyst must avoid all forms of suggestion.

The source of resistance lies in the ego:

«In the strict sense, the subject’s resistance is linked to the register of the ego, it is an effect of the ego.» [13]

Imaginary Order

Thus resistance belongs to the imaginary order, not to the level of the subject.

«On the side of what is repressed, on the unconscious side of things, there is no resistance, there is only a tendency to repeat.» [14]

This is illustrated in schema L; resistance is the imaginary axis a-a’ which impedes the insistant speech of the Other (which is the axis A-S).

The resistances of the ego are imaginary lures, which the analyst must be wary of being deceived by. [15]

Thus it can never be the aim of analysis to «strengthen the ego,» as ego-psychology claims, since this would only serve to increase resistance.

Ego-psychology

Resistance and Defence

Lacan also criticizes ego-psychology for confusing the concept of resistance with that of defense.

However, the distinction which Lacan draws between these two concepts is rather different from the way in which they are distinguished in Anglo-American psychoanalysis.

Lacan argues that defence is on the side of the subject, whereas resistance is on the side of the object.

That is, whereas defences are relatively stable symbolic structures of subjectivity, resistances are more transitory forces which prevent the object from being absorbed in the signifying chain.

Resistance to Change in Psychology: Engaging Resistant Clients

Facing a client who is resistant or possibly hostile to the therapeutic process or therapist can be unsettling and challenge the treatment’s success (Clay, 2017).

However, the therapist must be careful. Labeling behavior as resistant may result from a lack of knowledge or therapeutic skills, and an inadequate response to the situation can damage the client’s progress (Shallcross, 2010).

Reframed, uncomfortable interactions can strengthen the therapeutic relationship and further treatment, and encourage client growth.

This article explores resistance in therapy, the therapist’s potential to reduce its negative impact, and its use as part of the therapy process.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free. These science-based exercises explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology, including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

What Is Resistance to Change?

While some clients may have unconscious (also known as transferential) resistance to therapy, others have “conscious, deliberate opposition to therapeutic initiatives that they fail to understand or accept” (Austin & Johnson, 2017).

Such resistance, or objection, to both the therapist and therapy is sometimes referred to as ‘realistic resistance’ and includes opposition to (Rennie, 1994):

While having an issue with the general approach to therapy is an obstacle that may need specific focus, the therapist may moderate difficulties with in-session techniques and terms by building a solid working relationship between therapist and client (Austin & Johnson, 2017).

Perhaps the biggest issue is not so much the client’s objections, but their potential invisibility. The client may claim and even appear to be on board with the therapy process and the therapist’s recommendations, yet keep their disagreement hidden.

However, observant therapists are likely to spot covert acts of resistance when the client (Ackerman & Hilsenroth, 2001):

Training and experience can help mental health professionals recognize the subtle acts of defiance, address them, and strengthen the collaboration with the client (Austin & Johnson, 2017).

2 Examples of Resistance to Change

The following two real-world examples provide insight into the types of resistance a psychologist may face:

Regaining his composure, he could eventually repair the therapeutic relationship, but it left him shaken and questioning his competence. On reflection, Honda realized that resistance, while uncomfortable, can be a valuable path to success in therapy (Clay, 2017).

“Self-evaluation is key in dealing with resistance,” says Wubbolding (Shallcross, 2010).

Connecting with the client and understanding their perception as a victim with little control is vital. The therapist can then help the client realize that the path they have been on has not helped them – or has made things worse – and it may be time to try a new approach.

Client resistance may take different forms, including (Miller, 1999):

Reasons for Resistance: 3 Psychology Theories & Models

While breaks in the therapeutic alliance are often inevitable, they can obstruct client engagement and hinder the therapeutic process. Such resistance can result from (Safran, Crocker, McMain, & Murray, 1990):

The client may also attempt to avoid specific topics, known as ‘collusive resistance.’ Or they may present themselves as psychologically fragile and seek a reaction from the therapist (Austin & Johnson, 2017).

Several theories attempt to explain resistance in psychotherapy. While they differ in their assumed causes and how to deal with resistant patients, they recognize similar behavior as resistant (Beutler, Moleiro, & Talebi, 2002).

Psychoanalytic model of resistance

Freud’s model suggests that resistance results from the patient’s confrontation with unresolvable conflicts.

According to this theoretical framework, the ego has several specific defenses, such as “denial, sublimation, isolation, intellectualization, displacement, regression, projection, and reaction formulation” (Leahy, 2003).

As a result, clients may be unaware of their actual problems because their defenses protect them from the truth, exhibited as resistance (Leahy, 2003).

Behavioral models of resistance

Behaviorists may not like the term resistance, but they recognize that clients often fail to comply with therapeutic instructions (Leahy, 2003).

According to the behavioral model, the “failure of the patient to comply with therapy may be the result of inappropriate reinforcers or reinforcement contingencies” (Leahy, 2003). Resistant behavior may occur when positive actions are not reinforced immediately or the client has to wait for their desired result.

Cognitive models of resistance

In cognitive models such as Albert Ellis’s, resistance is often the result of unrealistic expectations and other irrational beliefs.

According to such models, resistance, like other irrational beliefs, requires head-on confrontation. The client must be helped to surrender irrational beliefs to move forward (Leahy, 2003).

How to Deal With Difficult and Resistant Clients

While resistance can interfere with collaboration and therapy, it should not cause it to stop.

Such therapeutic ruptures can serve as vehicles “that may be used to deepen the therapeutic bond and promote growth” (Austin & Johnson, 2017). They allow both client and therapist to practice interpersonal conflict resolution skills and promote growth that may not occur in their absence.

The process of resolution can overturn the client’s long-term, maladaptive interpersonal schemata.

The therapist should not avoid situations that risk challenging the process, but work to address the resistance (communicated directly or indirectly). Unless confronted, the therapist risks strengthening the client’s need for nurturance rather than growth (Safran et al., 1990).

There are several ways of “fostering growth by encouraging the client’s agency” (Austin & Johnson, 2017):

Skilled counselors balance how they handle avoidant responses, remaining sensitive to the client’s needs and feelings while still tackling the reason for being in therapy.

But this is not easy; it can be both tiring and frustrating.

Several techniques and strategies can help therapists remain calm and manage the challenging and potentially damaged therapeutic process (Clay, 2017).

Calm yourself

Fighting back will quickly escalate an already difficult situation. Rather than react to it, become aware of your emotional and physical state (confusion, dread, racing heart, etc.) and pause, even briefly.

Daily mindfulness practices can help you remain connected to your values as a therapist and become more aware of your sensations and thoughts.

Express empathy

While challenging, validate what the client is saying. Tell them you are sorry for doing something that has made them angry or that they feel is not helpful.

It is crucial to sound genuine and authentic to avoid further escalation. Once the emotion is acknowledged, clarify that swearing, threatening behavior, failure to show up, or refusing to pay for services is not acceptable.

Reframe resistance

If the client is resisting and the therapist gets irritated or annoyed, you have two people fighting one another, and the therapeutic relationship breaks down.

Instead, encourage the client to explore and explain their feelings and show that you recognize and understand them.

Cultivate patience

As a therapist, it can help to remember that you are there to bear the burden of your client’s pain.

Remembering the bigger picture can help you handle the frustration while developing patience that can be valuable in this situation and beyond.

Seek support from peers

All mental health professionals have challenging clients.

Sharing stories (confidentially) can remove feelings of isolation, lead to positive suggestions, and identify valuable techniques.

Consider terminating the relationship

Ultimately the client’s needs are paramount.

If the client truly believes the therapist is not meeting them, it may be time to end the relationship and refer them to another professional.

Reducing & Addressing Resistance: 7 Exercises

According to the American Counseling Association, there are several exercises and approaches counselors can use to manage and reduce the negative impact of resistance (Shallcross, 2010):

Ask the client how others in their environment treat them. Find out “how they oppress them, reject them, make unreasonable demands on them and control them” (Shallcross, 2010).

Encourage the client to self-evaluate. Ask them what techniques they have used in the past to cope and manage the situation and whether they were successful.

The counselor should try to connect with the client’s reality rather than focus on their own agenda. They can then encourage the client to recognize that while unable to control others’ behavior, they can manage their own – and that the therapist can help.

According to Clifton Mitchell, a professor at East Tennessee State University, “Resistance goes two ways. The challenge is finding more creative and effective ways to interact” (Shallcross, 2010).

The outcome of therapy is often decided by managing the obstacles and challenges encountered during the process.

The following techniques can help form a safe and trusting relationship that is ultimately productive:

Engaging Difficult Clients in Group Therapy

Each of the following strategies can be valuable in group (and often one-on-one) settings (modified from Austin & Johnson, 2017):

Client did not do their homework

Ask the group to confirm their understanding of the homework to ensure instructions were clear; discuss any confusion or obstacles they faced.

Pay particular attention to disagreements, challenges, and resistance within the group, and consider how increasing and improving collaboration may help.

Client misses several sessions

Discuss why the client could not attend one or multiple group sessions, and ask if there are any other underlying reasons.

For example, did recently discussed issues that caused distress factor in the decision not to attend?

Client verbally indicates only partial agreement

The client may be using phrases such as I’m fine or I’ll try.

Discuss the discrepancies between what they are saying and the tone they are using in the group.

Perhaps I’m misreading, but it sounds like…

Understand the thinking behind how they are responding, and share your assessment with the client.

Client signals don’t hurt me

Acknowledge the client’s distress and encourage them to engage fully in the group conversation. Ask them to sit up, remain focused, and talk openly in this safe space.

Client is avoiding specific topics

Bring the group conversation back to the topic, and become aware when avoidance tactics are evident.

Consider whether their behavior is consistent with the client’s problems or indicative of a disagreement with the therapist.

Client is behaving withdrawn or distant

Discuss with the client that you are sensing some distancing (from you or the group) or that you are concerned you are not on the same page.

Ask the client if they feel the same way or have anything they wish to share individually or with the group.

Client signals disengagement through other behavior

The client may be behaving in a way that signals complete disengagement from the group.

Take care drawing attention to the behavior in a group setting, as it may be upsetting to hear and cause further resistance. Use the information to shape the ongoing therapy, and attempt to draw them into future discussion.

8 Helpful Interview Questions

Solution-focused therapy focuses on the discussion of solutions rather than problems and helps overcome resistance.

Miracle questions invite the client to visualize how the future may look when the problem no longer exists and may be less daunting for the client than dwelling on existing issues.

Invite the client to envision and describe how the future could be different once the problem has been resolved.

The following therapy questions bring the exercise to life (and are less confrontational), potentially avoiding the triggering of resistance mechanisms:

The questions help create a picture of how life could look and may feel less contentious and pressuring than direct questions.

PositivePsychology.com’s Helpful Resources

We have plenty of tools, techniques, and worksheets to encourage cooperation within the therapeutic process and improve clients’ self-image and hope for the future.

A Take-Home Message

Recognizing resistance and taking the appropriate action in therapy may not always be straightforward.

Practitioners must watch for subtle indications of avoidance or evidence that the therapeutic alliance is straining (Austin & Johnson, 2017).

The therapist can then gently raise concerns regarding either what is being avoided or the tensions that arise. They must bear in mind that, ultimately, resistance can provide helpful input to the therapeutic process, offering new insights and the opportunity for growth.

It is important to remember that the therapeutic relationship is ultimately the priority. Observing and navigating resistance may require changing approaches and interventions. Indeed, when identified, it may be appropriate to let go of the planned agenda and focus on more pressing issues (Austin & Johnson, 2017).

The theories, examples, and techniques in this article should help you recognize that encountering resistance may be a significant breakthrough with a client, leading to a more robust client–therapist bond and valuable growth in the client.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free.

Resistance

The path of resistance has been neither straight nor narrow. First adopted by the political right, and then crossing the aisle to the left, resistance is sometimes considered a means and other times an end. Its modern history traces the evolution of an idea and a transformation in politics.

The English word resistance is a derivation of «resist,» stemming from the Latin — via the French — meaning «to stand.» Resistance has a technical scientific meaning, the opposition offered by one body to the pressure or movement of another, as well as a later psychoanalytic one, the unconscious opposition to repressed memories or desires. But the Oxford English Dictionary ‘s primary definition: «To stop or hinder (a moving body); to succeed in standing against; to prevent (a weapon, etc.) from piercing or penetrating,» has a distinct political bent.

Conservative Roots

Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797), the great conservative thinker of the modern era, makes the case for resistance in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Fondly remembering Marie Antoinette as a «morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy» (p. 75), Burke criticizes the revolutionary overthrow of birthright authority. Horrified by the thought of the hair-dresser who thinks himself the equal of his betters, he rails against the leveling of classes. But what really motivates Burke’s fear and loathing of the French Revolution is his belief that these radical and sudden changes fly in the face of time-tested tradition and are an «usurpation on the prerogatives of nature» (p. 49). Undermining the firm foundations of society, this can only lead to chaos. As such, Burke appeals to his English audience to resist such progress in their own country «with their lives and fortunes» (p. 16).

Nearly a century later, Burke’s countryman Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888) takes up the call of conservative resistance. In Dover Beach (1867) he describes a faithless land that «Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light. … Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight/Where ignorant armies clash by night.» Arnold’s mid-nineteenth century England was a world of storm and strife: urbanization, industrialization, and class warfare. The republican ideals of the French Revolution had triumphed over Burke’s beloved tradition, and «nature,» after Darwin, was harnessed to progress. A new principle of resistance was needed; for Arnold it was culture. As «the best which has been thought and said» (p. 6) as he defines it in Culture and Anarchy (1869), culture offered a means with which to rise above the politics, commerce, and machinery of the day and supply a universal standard upon which to base «a principle of authority, to counteract the tendency to anarchy which seems to be threatening us» (p. 82) Culture was a metaphysical realm where «real thought and real beauty; real sweetness and real light» (p. 69, author’s emphasis) could safely flourish, eventually returning to terra firma — if at all — in the form of an ideal State to guide society.

Anti-Colonial Resistance

Halfway around the world Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948) was developing his own ideas of resistance. Arriving at conclusions similar to Burke and Arnold, he stood these conservative notions on their head in opposing British colonial rule. Central to Gandhi’s political philosophy was the idea of satyagraha. In Sanskrit this means «insistence on the truth»; Gandhi, however, also used the word to denote «civil resistance.» This was a logical translation for him. Insisting on the truth in an India under foreign rule meant resisting the imposition of that rule, for as long as India labored under colonial guns and culture, she would have a false idea of herself. It was this false idea: that English culture comprised the «best that has ever been thought and said,» that one needed to be violent like one’s oppressors, that needed to be resisted more fiercely than even the British themselves. To be free of European bodies on Indian soil was one thing, to be free of their ideas, their prejudices, and their technology, was another. As Gandhi rhetorically asks in an early pamphlet Hind Swaraj (1910), «Why do you forget that our adoption of their civilization makes their presence at all possible?» (p. 75). As with Arnold, insistence on the truth meant cultivating a resistant culture that could rise above the world of the West and act as a guide to a truly home-ruled India. And like Burke, tradition offered a resource for this resistant culture. Gandhi counseled breaking India’s economic dependence on Britain by khaddar, a return to the hand looming of cloth, and looked to non-Westernized, rural India for political and spiritual models.

Radical resistance, defined in part as the rejection of foreign cultures and the celebration of indigenous traditions, winds its way through the twentieth century, as European colonies in Africa and Asia were swept away by struggles of national liberation. This strain of resistance makes its way back to the metropole in the words of those finding parallels between their own struggles and anticolonialism. A key point of identification was the fight against internalized oppression, what the Algerian writer and activist Albert Memmi (b. 1920) referred to as the colonizer within (1965). In 1970 the American group, Radicalesbians, issued a manifesto calling for «The Woman-Identified Woman.» «[W]hat is crucial» they write, «is that women begin disengaging themselves from male defined response patterns. … For irrespective of where our love and sexual energies flow, if we are male-identified in our heads, we cannot realize our autonomy as human beings.» «Only women,» they conclude, «can give to each other a new sense of self.»

These final words were picked up and developed by the radical black women of the Combahee River Collective, who asserted in 1977, «We believe that the most profound and potentially radical politics come directly out of our identity,» setting the stage for an «identity politics» that argued for resistance based within and upon the unique experiences of a person’s ethnicity, gender, or sexual identity (p. 272).

Totality

La R é sistance was the name adopted by the French citizens who fought against the Nazi occupation of France. But the specter of oppression didn’t disappear with the defeat of Fascism in the postwar West. Instead, totalizing power was identified everywhere and resistance was redefined as an everyday battle with no end in sight.

This total resistance against totality finds its roots in existentialism. Existentialists argued that the fate of humanity is to choose and to act; indeed, it is only in these actions that one defines who one is. «Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself,» Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980) writes in Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946; p. 349). If the importance of action (or resistance) was once judged on its efficacy in bringing about (or protecting) an ideal or country, Sartre was now arguing that it was the choice, and the action that follows, which matters. In the Myth of Sisyphus (1955), Albert Camus (1913 – 1960) retells the tale of Sisyphus, condemned for eternity by the gods to roll a rock up a hill only to watch it roll back down again. In this task Camus identifies the human condition as being condemned to an action that brings no certain result, but also finding definition — and happiness — in the absurd and ceaseless labor.

In 1961 Erving Goffman (1922 – 1982), an American sociologist influenced by the existentialists, wrote Asylums (1961), discussing «total institutions.» Observing patients in a mental asylum, Goffman agued that the job of total institutions is to create — or recreate — their charge’s identity in order to integrate them into the world. Individuals, however, don’t always do what they should. The patients Goffman observed elided institutional demands and created an «underlife» where different values reigned. Indeed, it was in resisting the definitions pressed upon them that inmates of institutions developed their own sense of identity. Asylums was an implicit critique of the postwar «Free World» of big business and the welfare state, mass media, and compulsory education. But, Goffman argues, this institutionalization and homogenization of thought and behavior need not lead only to despair, for as Goffman’s mental patients taught him, «It is against something that the self can emerge» (p. 320).

Meanwhile, youth cultures such as the beatniks, and later the hippies, were busy acting out identities of resistance, defining themselves by what they were not as much as what they were («I’m gonna wave my freak flag high,» sang Jimi Hendrix in 1968). The freak, mental patient, artist, native, and resurrecting an old ideal of nineteenth-century anarchism, the criminal, were celebrated (and idealized) in their «otherness»; their resistance — conscious or not — to the world of the white-collared conservative. In 1968 the world seemed to explode. Vietnamese nationalists were defeating the most powerful military in the world, U.S. college campuses and urban ghettoes were in upheaval, young people stood up to dictatorships in Mexico City and Prague, and perhaps most dramatic of all, students and workers, together, took to the streets of Paris in May 1968. The world was rocked to its core, yet politically little seemed to change: the ruling powers in these countries continued to rule.

In Paris of the 1960s Michel Foucault (1926-1984), like Gofffman, was examining total institutions such as prisons, asylums, and schools, but the French intellectual was interested in institutions of the mind as well, such as disciplinary boundaries and classification systems. The failures of the political resistance in 1968 confirmed what Foucault had already known: that power was not something out there — easy to identify and to overthrow. Instead it was everywhere, «the disciplinary grid of society,» which was continuous, anonymous, intimate, and even pleasurable (1980, p. 111). Whereas previous critics of totalitarianism, from the left and the right, elevated the ideal of the individual subject resisting against totalizing society, Foucault countered that the individual was itself problematic. This Enlightenment creature that made new ideals of personal freedom possible also opened up a new site of oppression: the individual’s mind, body, and spirit. Because power is impressed upon and internalized into the subject, it raises the vexing problem of who resists and what exactly are they resisting. Can one resist the very subject thing doing the resisting?

Resistance remains a stated goal for Foucault, but it must be reconceptualized. The ideal of developing the pure subject in opposition to the corrupting object of society must be rejected. «Maybe the target nowadays,» he suggests, «is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are» (1984, p. 22). Foucault’s refusal to provide an answer, to spell out what the resistant subject is for or against, is characteristic, as it is the answer, the category, the truth which constrains us most of all.

In his essay, «The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media» (1985) the playful postmodernist Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929) extends Foucault’s ideas to their — perhaps illogical — conclusion. Baudrillard argues that strategies of resistance always change to reflect strategies of control. Against a system that excludes or represses the individual, the natural demand is one of inclusion: to become a subject. This, however, is not the modern world. In twenty-first century Western society people are bombarded with appeals for their participation: «Vote!» and «This Bud’s for You,» and yet they also know that their choice or vote matters little. Against a system that justifies and sustains its existence by the consent (or consumer purchases) of those it governs, the masses have devised their strategy of resistance: apathy — «a spontaneous, total resistance to the ultimatum of historical and political reason» (p. 588). Popular politics is «no longer a question of revolution but of massive devolution … a massive desisting from will» (p. 586). It is a resistance to resistance.

Cultural Resistance

While apathy may reign supreme in the voting booth, some scholars and activists have been looking for resistance elsewhere: on the street corner, in the living room, or at the club, that is, in cultural expression. Matthew Arnold first articulated cultural resistance, but the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937) framed the contemporary discussion.

Gramsci, writing from a Fascist jail in the 1920s and early 1930s, reflected on why the communist revolutions he labored for in the West had so far failed. Part of the reason, he concluded, was a serious underestimation of culture and civil society. Power does not just reside in institutions, but also in the ways people make sense of their world; hegemony is both a political and cultural process. Armed with culture instead of guns, one fights a different type of battle. Whereas traditional battles were «wars of maneuver,» frontal assaults that seized the state, cultural battles were «wars of position,» flanking maneuvers, commando raids, and infiltrations, staking out positions from which to attack and then reassemble civil society (pp. 229 – 239). Thus, part of the revolutionary project was to create counterhegemonic culture behind enemy lines. But if this culture was to have real power, and communist integrity, it could not — contra Arnold — be imposed from above; it must come out of the experiences and consciousness of people. Thus, the job of the revolutionary is to discover the progressive potentialities that reside within popular consciousness and from this material fashion a culture of resistance.

It was this implicitly politico-cultural mission that guided the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in the 1970s. The CCCS is best known for its subcultural studies, and it was within these mainly working-class subcultures that researchers found an inchoate politics of resistance. Mods one-upped their bosses with their snappy dress. Punks performed the decline of Britain with lyrics that warned: «We’re your future, no future.» Skinheads recreated a cohesive white, masculine working-class world that no longer existed. And Rastafarians turned the world upside down by rereading Christianity into a condemnation of white Babylon. It was through culture that young people contested and rearranged the ideological constructions — the systems of meaning — handed down to them by the dominant powers of postwar Britain.

For Stuart Hall (the influential director of the CCCS) and his colleagues, cultural resistance was politically ambiguous. Subcultures opened up spaces where dominant ideology was contested and counter hegemonic culture was created, however, these contestations and symbolic victories often remained locked in culture. «There is no ‘subcultural solution'» to structural inequality write Hall and his colleagues in Resistance through Rituals (1976), «They ‘solve,’ but in an imaginary way, problems which at the concrete material level remain unresolved» (pp. 47 – 48). As W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973) came to lament, «Poetry makes nothing happen» — at least not by itself.

Resistance Refuted and Reimagined

Is cultural resistance, resistance at all? Malcolm Cowley (1898 – 1989) raised this question in Exile’s Return (1934), his memoir of Bohemian days in Greenwich Village. He pointed out that while the cultural conservatism of the Victorians may have served an era of capitalism predicated on hard work and savings, by the 1920s a new ethic was needed for what was becoming a mass consumer economy. Within the context of consumer capitalism the bohemian call to be freed from yesterday’s conventions translates easily into freedom to buy tomorrow’s products. More recently, Thomas Frank has taken up the refrain, writing in his journal The Baffler (1993):

Over the years the rebel has naturally become the central image of this culture of consumption, symbolizing endless, directionless change, an eternal restlessness with «the establishment» — or, more correctly, with the stuff «the establishment» convinced him to buy last year. (p. 12)

As a purely political strategy resistance also has its critics. Resistance only exists in relation to the dominant power — «bonds of rejection,» are what Richard Sennett calls these in his discussion of Authority (1980) — and without that dominant power, resistance has no coherence or purpose. This is not a difficulty if resistance is a tactic on the road to revolution (and thus the end of resistance), but once this goal is discarded resistance becomes problematic, for what is the point of resistance if the very thing being resisted must be maintained?

In the early twenty-first century, theorists and activists are rethinking and redefining resistance, approaching it less as a stand against the world and more as means with which to actualize a new one. This is a central theme of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire (2000). Resistance, they argue, has two sides. Yes, it is opposing the current world, «but at the same time it is linked to a new world.» This new world, however, unlike the revolutionary utopias of times past, «knows no outside. It knows only an inside, a vital and ineluctable participation in the set of social structures, with no possibility of transcending them» (p. 413). This is a strange resistance. What sort of opposition counsels participation inside the system? What sort of new world cannot transcend the old one? The answers lie in Hardt and Negri’s analysis of empire. Within the social structures of the system of global capitalism they discover resistant elements: global interdependence, social networks, systems of communication, affective and immaterial labor, and the formation of cooperative consciousness. These ideas and practices are as useful to a new world as they are necessary to the old one. As such, these experiences lived by the multitude are both conformity and resistance, depending upon how one understands and mobilizes them.

Hakim Bey (also known as Peter Lamborn Wilson) shares Hardt and Negri’s suspicion of a world «outside,» but believes that through resistance one can catch a glimpse of an alternative. His model is the TAZ, or Temporary Autonomous Zone (1985), an immediate experience — a happening — that temporarily reverses the rules, laying bare the structures of the present and experimenting with a model for the future. The TAZ is necessarily limited in time and space. «But,» Bey argues, «such moments of intensity give shape and meaning to the entirety of a life» (p. 100). Protest groups such as London-born Reclaim the Streets put this philosophy of resistance into practice in the 1990s: throwing large, illegal street parties that literally demonstrated to participants what the experience of a participatory public culture feels like. What is being created, through acts of resistance, is a revolutionary imagination. As the rebel-poet Subcommandante Marcos of the Zapatista army in Southern Mexico writes,

In our dreams we have seen another world. A sincere world, a world definitively more just than the one in which we now move. … That sincere world was not a dream of the past, it was not something that came from our ancestors. It came from ahead, it was from the next step that we had taken.

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«The Combahee River Collective Statement.» In Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, edited by Barbara Smith. New York: Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press, 1983. First published in 1977.

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Notes:

Resistance

Resistance

The concept of resistance, meaning literally to stand against, entered the social sciences primarily from politics and culture. While there is a clinical psychoanalytic definition of the term, and a technical one used by the physical sciences, it is really resistance in a critical politico-cultural sense that has had the greatest impact in the field.

Resistance in a political context is often thought of as the property of the left. The famed French (and often communist-led) R é sistance against the Nazi occupation immediately comes to mind. But the concept was first introduced into the modern political lexicon from the right, by Edmund Burke, who argued for the necessity of resisting revolutionary “ progress ” in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Burke was incensed at the French overthrow of birthright authority and the leveling of classes (he was particularly horrified by the thought of the hairdresser who thinks himself the equal of his betters). These, and other such revolutionary abuses, fly in the face of time-tested tradition and threaten to upset the natural order of things. As such, it is the “ best wisdom and the first duty ” of every Englishman to stand against such radical change, with “ jealous, ever-waking vigilance ” (p. 54).

The conservative call for a resistance against change was taken up by Burke ’ s countryman Matthew Arnold. By the mid-nineteenth century the republican ideals of the French revolution had the lead over Burke ’ s beloved tradition, and nature, after Darwin, was harnessed to progress. A new principle of resistance was needed — and for Arnold, it was culture. As “ the best that has ever been thought and said ” (as he defines it in Culture and Anarchy, 1869), culture offered a means with which to rise above the politics, commerce, and industry of the day and supply a universal standard upon which to base authority and order.

Karl Marx, exiled in England when Arnold was writing, also thought resistance a conservative ideal. In their 1848 Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels paint a heady portrait of dynamic change: traditions overthrown, nature transformed, nations dissolved, people uprooted; a world where “ all that is solid melts into air ” (p. 38). For Marx, resistance is not the answer — it ’ s the problem. It is capitalism ’ s bourgeois caretakers who are resisting the system ’ s own logic. Capitalism has socialized the means of production, yet ownership is kept in the hands of the few. The revolutionary solution is to tear asunder this final resistance and herald in the new world.

Resistance moved leftward with the anticolonial struggles of the twentieth century. Mohandas K. Gandhi, waging a battle against British rule in India, advocated a political philosophy of satyagraha. In Sanskrit this word means “ insistence on the truth, ” but Gandhi also used it to denote “ civil resistance. ” This conflation of meanings makes a certain sense, as for Gandhi it was the untruths of colonial rule — that power must rest upon violence, that English culture comprised the “ best that has ever been thought and said ” — that needed to be resisted more fiercely than even the British themselves. To be free of European bodies on Indian soil was one thing; to be free of their ideas, their prejudices, and their technology was another. Drawing upon both Burke and Arnold, but turning these ideas on their head, Gandhi advised the practice of civil disobedience, not merely in the streets, but through a political and spiritual return to traditional Indian culture and practices like khaddar, the hand-looming of cloth.

Radical resistance, defined in part as the rejection of foreign cultures and the celebration of indigenous traditions, spread across the globe as European colonies in Africa and Asia were overturned by struggles of national liberation. Gandhi ’ s strategy of nonviolent civil disobedience was not adopted by all. The Caribbean psychiatrist-cum-rebel Frantz Fanon made the case for bloody resistance in his influential The Wretched of the Earth (1963). Indeed, for Fanon it is the very violence of the resistance that will clear the way to a new society. But for all their differences, Gandhi and Fanon agreed on one thing: that the enemy that one had to resist the most virulently was the enemy one had internalized — what the Tunisian writer and activist Albert Memmi referred to in his 1957 book The Colonizer and the Colonized as “ the colonizer within. ”

The concept of resistance returned to the West via concerns with identity and identity-construction. In the early 1960s the American sociologist Erving Goffman argued that the job of total institutions like prisons, hospitals, and armies is to create — or recreate — their charge ’ s identity in order to integrate them into the system. However, Goffman observes, the patients in the mental institution he studied actually formed their identities by eliding institutional demands and creating “ underlives ” within the institution. In brief, it is in resisting the definitions pressed upon them that inmates of institutions develop their own sense of identity: “ It is against something that the self can emerge ” (p. 320). Goffman ’ s book, Asylums (1961), was not merely a critique of total institutions, but a critical assessment of the postwar “ Free World ” of big business and the welfare state, mass media, and compulsory education — a mostly benign, but nonetheless totalizing system.

It was in resistance to this benign totality — the tickytacky little boxes where everyone comes out all the same, as Pete Seeger sang in 1962 — that a youth counterculture emerged in the 1960s, as young people created “ under-lives ” by defining themselves against The System. Some of this resistance was political — opposition to the American war in Vietnam, for instance — but it was also a stylistic confrontation: new styles of clothes, forms of music, and types of intoxicants. In other words, it was cultural resistance.

The idea, and ideal, of cultural resistance, while first championed by Matthew Arnold, takes its radical articulation from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci held that hegemony is both a political and cultural process and thus part of the revolutionary project is to create a counterhegemonic culture. But if this culture is to have real power, and radical integrity, it cannot — contra Arnold — be imposed from above; it must come out of the experiences and consciousness of “ the people. ” Thus, the job of the revolutionary is to discover the progressive potentialities that reside within popular consciousness and from this material fashion a culture of resistance.

It was this implicit politico-cultural mission that guided the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham in the 1970s. The CCCS is best known for its study of subcultures, and it was within mainly working class subcultures — punks, mods, skinheads, and Rastafarians — that researchers found an inchoate culture of resistance. For Stuart Hall and his CCCS colleagues, however, cultural resistance was politically ambiguous. Subcultures opened up spaces where dominant ideology was contested and counter-hegemonic culture was created; at the same time, these contestations and symbolic victories often remained purely cultural, leaving the political and economic systems untouched. Cultural resistance, unless translated into political action, becomes what Hall and others referred to as “ imaginary ” solutions to real-world problems (Hall 1976).

This raises a nagging question that dogs the whole project of politico-cultural resistance : Is this resistance really resistance at all? The efficacy of cultural resistance has been questioned since at least 1934, when Malcolm Cowley, reminiscing about his Greenwich Village life in Exile ’ s Return, pointed out that while bohemians may have flouted Victorian values of thrift and savings, their libertinism and emphasis on style and innovation mesh quite nicely with the needs of consumer capitalism. As the Frankfurt School theorist Theodor Adorno snidely remarked about the jazz fan of the era, “ he pictures himself as the individualist who whistles at the world. But what he whistles is its melody ” (Adorno 1938, p. 298). Resistance as a political strategy also has its critics. Resistance only exists in relation to the dominant power — “ bonds of rejection ” is what Richard Sennett calls this relationship in his discussion of Authority (1985) — and without that dominant power, resistance has no coherence or purpose. What, then, is the point of resistance if it rests on the maintenance of the very thing being resisted?

Michel Foucault, like his contemporary Erving Goffman, studied total institutions — prisons, asylums, and schools — but the French intellectual was interested in institutions of the mind as well: disciplinary boundaries and classification systems. The failures of radical political resistance in 1968 confirmed what Foucault had already known: that power was not something “ out there ” — easy to identify and overthrow. Instead, it was everywhere, continuous, anonymous, intimate, and even pleasurable: “ the disciplinary grid of society ” (p. 111), as he names it in Power/Knowledge (1980). For most critics, the individual subject/self is the hero of resistance against totalizing control; Foucault countered that the subject itself was problematic. The Enlightenment ’ s focus on the subject allowed for new ideals of personal freedom, but it also opened up new sites of oppression: the individual ’ s mind, body, and spirit. Because power is impressed upon and internalized in the subject, it raises a vexing problem: Who is it that resists and what exactly are they resisting? Can one resist the very subject doing the resisting? Resistance remains a stated goal for Foucault, but one that must be reconceptualized. The ideal of developing the pure subject in opposition to the corrupting object of society must be rejected. “ Maybe the target nowadays, ” he suggests in “ The Subject and Power ” (1984), “ is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are ” (p. 208).

This idea of resistance is played out to its — perhaps illogical — conclusion by the playful postmodernist Jean Baudrillard. In his 1985 essay “ The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media, ” Baudrillard argues that strategies of resistance always change to reflect strategies of control. Against a system that excludes or represses the individual, the natural demand is one of inclusion: to become a subject. Today, however, people are bombarded with appeals for their participation — and yet they still feel that their choice or vote matters little. Against a system that justifies and sustains its existence by the political consent (or consumer purchases) of those it governs, the masses have devised a new strategy of resistance: apathy, “ a massive desisting from will ” (p. 109). A resistance to resistance.

Another path taken has been to move beyond resistance — to reimagine identities and politics not tied to the negation of the other. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri sketch a bleak portrait of an all-pervasive, omnipotent system of control: Empire (2000). They acknowledge that within such a system, political and cultural resistance is usually expressed in a generalized “ being-against ” — a negative resistance. Yet they also see the chance for something different. They argue, like Marxists before them, that the system itself is generating the very tools and social conditions that make transcendence possible. The system of Empire relies upon new communication flows, new forms of organization, and new subjectivities — all of which might give rise to radical identities, ideals, and collective actions not mired in the negation of being-against, thereby offering the subjectivity necessary for proactive social change, that is: a “ being-for. ” The boldest, and perhaps most outrageous, proposal to move beyond resistance comes from the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Z ̌ iz ̌ ek who, drawing upon ideas of Jacques Lacan in The Ticklish Subject (1999), proposes something he calls “ the Act ” — a radical act that jumps outside the coordinates of the dominant system, including any opposition tied to these coordinates. This act transcends resistance and its attendant disobedient obedience — but one might also legitimately ask: Where does an act like this lead?

SEE ALSO Colonialism; Cultural Studies; Fanon, Frantz; Foucault, Michel; Gandhi, Mohandas K.; Goffman, Erving; Gramsci, Antonio; Hall, Stuart; Marx, Karl; Marxism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Resistance

RESISTANCE.

«Resistance,» as a category covering all forms of opposition against the new European order imposed by Nazi Germany, has no conceptual unity. It covers a variety of reactions against very different regimes imposed and different policies pursued in different countries and regions of Europe at different times of Nazi expansion, from 1938 until 1945. The form these reactions took—their means of action, their organization, their development, their political program, and even their ideology—were first of all dictated by the German aggression to which they were reacting and the intrusive policies of the occupier to transform their societies. Secondarily resistance was shaped by endogenous factors, such as the respective weight of radical political movements in the prewar political arena; traditions of insurrection and armed struggle, as well as of civil disobedience and distrust of state authority; the legitimacy of prewar political institutions; and social cohesion or the lack of it, because of social, political, or ethnic polarization. To clarify these matters, the marginal movements of dissent against national dictatorship in Germany or in Italy are not dealt with here, because they proceed from a very different dynamic and cannot be subsumed under the same analytical umbrella as the movements that emerged in the countries Germany and Italy occupied. It is not that resistance in Italy or Germany was of no importance; it is rather that the historical phenomenon that contemporaries understood as resistance was located in countries occupied by the Axis Powers.

The term resistance has been variously used to describe partisan attacks on German troop transports; military intelligence gathering for the Allied services; the killing of collaborationist «traitors»; the networks organizing the hiding and, sometimes, escape of Allied aircrew, Jews, and requisitioned workers; the printing and distribution of underground newspapers and pamphlets; the attitudes of the churches toward Nazi rule; and the preparation of postwar politics by political movements. Depending on the definition adopted, the term resistance refers to small nuclei of radicalized guerrillas; military professionals with technical expertise in intelligence gathering and transmission; large-scale networks involving the active participation of thousands of individuals and the complicity of tens if not hundreds of thousands; or even the mainstream of political opinion, including their traditional elites, in a given country during the last months of the occupation. Differences pertain both to the nature and the scale of the phenomenon, and each definition is also implicitly normative. Some more radical forms of resistance are condemned by part of the national opinion and postwar historiography as «terrorism.» Other mainstream forms focused on the preparation of the postwar are similarly decried as attentisme—the tendency to wait and see—or cowardice. Measuring resistance in terms of military effectiveness is highly problematic. Defining it in terms of ideological coherence is similarly bound to failure. Not all antifascist movements were at all times anti-German, nor were all anti-German movements forcibly antifascist. The attitude of communist parties while the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact lasted illustrated the first contradiction; the precocious radical action by ultranationalist authoritarian movements in occupied countries, in Ukraine, Poland, Serbia, or Belgium, exemplify the latter.

Nevertheless, it is the merger in some occupied countries of all these various strands of «resistance» into a «home front» in the months leading to liberation that has retrospectively created the image of a united and organized movement, equally involved in the struggle against the occupier and, drawing legitimacy from this combat, in the foundation of a new postwar order. Yet, both activities were often more dissociated than glorifying narratives admit. The turmoil of war also offered a unique opportunity for political revolutions, replacing prewar political elites, forcing through radical political agendas, benefiting from wartime polarization. In its mildest form, this involved the drafting of new constitutions or political platforms for reforms to be implemented after the liberation, such as the nationalization of certain economic sectors or the reinforcement of social rights. In its more radical forms, this involved the purging of political enemies who had chosen the occupier’s side through imprisonment, expulsion, or execution and/or the expropriation and expulsion by legal or by violent means of ethnic minorities, seizing on the extreme violence unleashed by Nazi population policies to settle once and for all the unresolved minority questions of the nation-states born from or reshaped by World War I. The fault lines between collaboration and resistance are much less clear here than in cases in which concrete action against the occupier is involved, simply because domestic political agendas often occupied a much higher priority. The radical nature of wartime political revolutions depended on the degree of turmoil, the level of violence, and the destruction or delegitimization of prewar political structures. Two factors are therefore crucial in outlining a typology of the war experience and the reactions it triggered: space and time.

GEOGRAPHIC FACTORS

The spatial factor derives from the fundamentally and deliberately asymmetrical nature of Nazi rule in Europe. Between the two extreme ends of the timescale on which Nazi planners projected their program—the immediate strategic contingencies of battle and the ultimate ideological goals of transforming the European continent in an imperial order destined to last one thousand years—there was an almost infinite latitude for experimentation, provisional solutions, and a very peculiar management of priorities, of a military, economic, or ideological nature. Very schematically, one can distinguish three geographical areas.

Eastern Europe

The war in eastern Europe occupied the most central place in the Nazi ideology, because this was where the Lebensraum, the vital space of colonization for the German race, was located—a space to be vacated by a war of annihilation (Vernichtungskrieg), wiping out local elites and overall decimating the indigenous population. This war of destruction was primarily waged in Poland, Ukraine, and Byelorussia and to a lesser extent in the Baltic countries. It was accompanied by large-scale murder, genocide, civil war, and ethnic cleansing. Collaboration was a desperate choice, devoid of any hope for an alternative political order, because the Nazi occupier never offered any other perspective than a brutal and planned policy of colonization, plunder, starvation, and deportation as outlined, for example, in the detailed and sinister Generalplan Ost.

The region was moreover the scene for multiple occupations and shifting front lines. The German–Soviet partition of Poland in September 1939 created waves of refugees, mostly eastward, but the anticipation of a better life in the Soviet zone was soon to be disappointed by harsh Stalinist policies. The German invasion of the USSR in June 1941 provoked new waves of evacuation and retaliatory killings. The loyalties of Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Jews to either of the occupiers of prewar Poland inevitably caused civil war fault lines to run partly along ethnic lines. Anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalists similarly initially welcomed the German army as liberators, only to discover that, apart from the recruitment of auxiliary military and police personnel, the German occupier had no wish whatsoever to create a viable Ukrainian nation. By 1943, the security situation for Ukrainian auxiliaries in the German-controlled forces was such that they deserted in droves to the Soviet partisans or the Ukrainian nationalist partisans. After having actively participated in the elimination of the local Jewish population, from 1943 onward, Polish, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian nationalists would increasingly turn on each other, trying to carve out ethnically homogeneous areas in the anticipation of a postwar settlement. While both the Polish anticommunist Home Army and the Polish communist partisans waged a heroic battle for survival against the German occupier, the prospect of a united front was never an option, as the brutal events of the autumn of 1944 illustrate, when the Red Army patiently witnessed from the outskirts of Warsaw the elimination of the nationalist insurrection by the German Army.

Southeastern Europe

Southeastern Europe, particularly the Balkans, form a second area with a distinct fate. The German invasion responded to the strategic imperative to occupy the northern shore of the Mediterranean in order to avoid a British landing rather than the implementation of any precise planning or ideological design. The winter famine in Greece in 1941 and 1942, for example, was the result of cynical neglect and contempt for the lives of the local population and not of any deliberate calculation. In Yugoslavia in particular, a country that had verged on civil war ever since its creation after World War I, extreme brutality against the civilian population combined with murderously divisive occupation policies, as practiced by the German, Italian, and Hungarian occupiers, exacerbating tensions among Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenes, ethnic Hungarians, ethnic Germans, Jews, and Gypsies, degenerated into generalized internecine killing. The creation of a Croat fascist—Ustaša—State and the annexation policies in other areas were particularly nefarious in this regard.

In this context of anarchy, the tiny prewar communist parties emerged as the most efficient and credible endogenous force. Partisan republics, organizing the redistribution of land and capable of halting ethnic violence, both by offering an alternative political creed and by ruthlessly eliminating its nationalist adversaries, established the only homegrown communist regimes in Europe outside the Soviet Union, in Albania and Yugoslavia. In Greece only the intervention of twenty-two thousand British troops could avert a similar scenario. Unlike postwar France, Italy, or the German Democratic Republic, which would rhetorically proclaim to be political regimes born from resistance struggle, the Albanian and Yugoslav communist parties effectively transformed a clandestine underground apparatus into a new ruling elite, with all the problems this entailed. By 1957 Milovan Djilas, himself a partisan hero, would describe in The New Class how a regime built on this historical legitimacy was hermetically closed to the younger generations and fundamentally frozen in its evolution.

Western and central Europe

Finally, there is the heterogeneous group of occupied countries from western and central Europe—Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Czechoslovakia. Here the Nazi occupier proceeded to limited annexations of regions integrating the Reich—the Sudeten area, Alsace-Lorraine, the whole of Luxembourg, and the Eupen-et-Malmédy area ceded to Belgium in 1919—but mainly, the occupation policy was one of Aufsichtsverwaltung, a policy of economic exploitation at minimal cost, leaving the national administration largely intact.

The institutional setting in this third area was extremely heterogeneous. Czechoslovakia was dismembered between the annexed zone, the protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, and the fascist clerical puppet state of Slovakia. Denmark, which had accepted the entry of German troops into its territory, was placed under the protection of a German governor, but was otherwise allowed to maintain its institutions, to the point that it even held free elections in March 1943—elections that did not even alter the internal political balance. In France, political events anticipated German decisions as to the fate of its institutions, as the national assembly of the Third Republic dissolved itself and elected a World War I hero, the elderly Philippe Pétain, as head of a new authoritarian state. Pétain’s first decision was to offer an armistice and accept unconditionally the terms imposed by the German occupier, including the partitioning of the country into a southern zone, unoccupied until November 1942, a central zone under German military rule, and the «forbidden zone» of the coastal defense line. In Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium, the national governments and, with the exception of Belgium, heads of state, had fled to London before the French collapse, in the hope of continuing the war. In Norway, the Germans first instituted military rule and later installed the fascist government of Vidkun Quisling, a notoriously failed experiment in the exportation of their political model. In Belgium, they opted for military rule for the whole duration of the occupation, while in the Netherlands they imposed civilian Nazi rule under Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart.

In spite of these very contrasting institutional settings, Nazi policies in this third area were both comparable and coordinated. National and local administrations were left in place, with an overall relatively prudent policy to replace recalcitrant civil servants with politically more obedient personnel. The central concern was to limit the German presence and avoid major disruptions. The army, procurement ministry, and the SS leadership had conflicting views on the priorities guiding occupation policy; these parties were concerned, respectively, with: military security by avoiding radical policies, maximal economic benefit or Nazification, and an all-out war against the ideological enemies of the Reich. The first two imperatives did dominate the occupation policy, with one brutal exception: the deportation of all Jews from these territories to the centers of mass death in eastern Europe, a quite disruptive policy, but one that was an unquestionable priority on the Nazi agenda. The mass deportation of Jews in the summer of 1942 was one example of an operation planned for the whole area in a concerted timetable. Another example is the deportation of workers for German industry, after a policy of voluntary recruitment, reaching a peak in the summer of 1943. Obviously, these coordinated policies provoked comparable reactions and delineated a common horizon of action for local resistance movements.

The view of the occupier

The vantage point for an integrated analysis of these very heterogeneous situations, between the three groups and inside each of the groups described above, is of course the perspective of the German occupier. Even though the pursued goals were entirely different depending on the geographical reach, Nazi Germany also acquired considerable expertise in occupation management in general and in counter-insurgency in particular—an experience carefully studied by the U.S. military in particular after 1945. The science of occupation management started from an analysis of the precedent of World War I. The first occupation of Belgium had mobilized an inordinate number of military and administrative personnel, for a disappointing return on investment in economic terms, and a catastrophic impact on Germany’s public relations, an error Nazi planners were determined to avoid in 1940. Nazi domination over half a dozen countries by the summer of 1941 offered a new sample for comparative analysis.

Extremely instructive in this regard is the report published by the occupation expert and SD (Sicherheitsdienst) man Werner Best concerning his study tour of occupied capitals in August 1941. At the height of the Nazi onslaught on the Soviet Union, Best tried to establish the elementary rules allowing the most efficient management of any given occupied territory, with a minimal input of German military and administrative personnel. After a stint as occupation expert in Paris in 1940 and 1941, Best would apply his conclusions as German governor of Denmark. Best, whose credentials as a first-hour Nazi and anti-Semite cannot be doubted, not only allowed the elections of March 1943, but he also organized or at the very least tacitly authorized the discreet evacuation of the tiny Danish Jewish community over the Copenhagen Sound. The predictable disruption and polarization a manhunt in the streets of the capital would have caused were a price Best was not willing to pay for the sake of adding one thousand victims to a continental program killing several millions. Denmark continued to be the exemplary student in the classroom of occupied nations, to the point of causing genuine concern among the Danish elites about the postwar treatment of Denmark after an Allied victory. Best then proceeded to negotiate with the Danish «underground» on a mutually agreed program of «demonstrative Sabotagetätigkeit,» a series of spectacular but harmless bomb attacks, sufficient to convince Allied capitals of the Danish resistance spirit, but not destructive enough to hinder German logistics, nor to force the occupier into retaliation and a spiral of terror and counter-terror that would threaten the mutually beneficial Aufsichtsverwaltung. But the evacuation of the Copenhagen Jews did pass to posterity as one of the most heroic and humanitarian resistance acts in the whole of occupied Europe.

CHRONOLOGICAL FACTORS

A second parameter is chronology, and more particularly the duration and proximity of battle. On the eastern front, the military confrontation raged uninterruptedly from June 1941 through April 1945 and with it the spiral of radicalizing violence, among belligerents and against the civilian populations caught between the hammer and the anvil, with intense partisan activity behind the German lines. The awkward position of Italy in the geographical typology described above illustrates the pertinence of the chronological factor. Until September 1943, Italy was an occupation force and cobelligerent with the Wehrmacht on the eastern front. After the Italian surrender and until April 1945, the very slowly receding front line crossed the peninsula, with the polarizing effects of massive violence observed elsewhere. From the urban revolt in Naples to the guerrilla battles in the hills of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, the military confrontation spilled over into local civil wars, with over ten thousand civilians killed in massacres by German troops and the auxiliaries of the Salo Republic. No country better illustrates the difference between antifascism and resistance than Italy. By 1926, Benito Mussolini had effectively placed the political opposition against his regime out of harm’s way. Antifascism was limited to the milieu of political exiles, and domestic public opinion was characterized by consent rather than widespread opposition and subversion. The Allied and, consequently, German invasions triggered very different reactions, and the sheer violence and displacement of the military confrontation mobilized a partisan movement both in size and strategy more akin to the Balkan situation than to that of the occupied countries of western Europe. One year later, the advance of the Red Army in south-central Europe would cause short but intensely violent confrontations in the Axis states of Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. There are in this regard obvious difficulties in comparing the Hungarian «resistance» in April 1945 with the Norwegian resistance in April 1940.

In western Europe, resistance is foremost characterized by physical separation from the battlefield. In May and June 1940, the battle lasted for five days in the Netherlands, eighteen in Belgium, and forty days in France—too short to allow for any organized, nonmilitary resistance to emerge. Until the return of battle in June 1944, resistance was mainly limited to intelligence, escape lines, the underground press, or the preparation of popular militias for D-Day and H-Hour. Radical formations who engaged in bomb attacks or shooting of the German Army were condemned in most underground newspapers, which deemed such a strategy both useless from a military point of view and wasteful of civilian lives because of the draconian retaliation they provoked. The Allied landings opened a wholly new and very violent chapter, with the full-out engagement in battle of resistance troops and generalized guerrilla warfare. Large-scale massacres of civilians, such as in the French village of Oradour, where 642 civilians were killed, or in the Vercors, where a partisan uprising was massacred by retreating German troops, occurred only in the wake of the invasion, partly because of the emergency transfer of troops from the eastern front who imported their brutal methods of counterinsurgency. Similarly violent episodes occurred during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and January 1945. The partisan warfare in western Europe is mostly a rural phenomenon, coinciding with the length of regular military engagement in a given locality. Major cities such as Paris and Brussels were spared from potentially murderous liberation battles.

A last important chronological distinction applies to the «end» of resistance. For Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic countries, anti-Soviet partisan activity continued into the late 1940s. For parts of central and eastern Europe, particularly for the Balkans, including Greece, 1945 is not the end of the cycle of civil war, ethnic cleansing, expropriation, and political violence. The second half of the decade from 1938 to 1948 is in that regard often more fundamental than the five years up to 1943.

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS

These fundamental differences serve as an elementary precaution to any generalizing overall interpretations of the phenomenon of resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe. With these reservations in mind, one can, however, outline a few common characteristics of the organized opposition to Nazi rule in Europe.

A first useful distinction applies to the forms of engagement. One should not confound «intentional» resistance of highly motivated «first movers» with the less political «functional» resistance of large networks. Intentional resistance involved patriots and nationalists, who rejected German occupation because it violated national sovereignty, and a broad alliance of antifascists, the most active and organized of which were the communist parties. Functional resistance involved individuals, groups, and institutions that occupied a particular place in society allowing them to give crucial support to an organized resistance movement. There are notoriously few intentional resisters among farmers and clerics, yet both social groups came to play a crucial role in the hiding and feeding of an ever increasing clandestine population, including resistance militants whose identity has been discovered by the enemy, Allied prisoners of war and recovered aircrew, Jews, and requisitioned workers. Farms, monasteries, orphanages, and boarding schools had the real estate, the means, and the advantage of not being suspected of subversion, which allowed them to play a pivotal rule in the «humanitarian» resistance all over Europe. Policemen, as well as civil servants working in the labor administrations and the municipal registry offices, were faced with a very different choice. Their daily tasks involved often-considerable assistance to the occupation authorities in tracing the addresses and identities of wanted individuals or lending assistance to their arrest. Under the increasing pressure of the ever more intrusive policies of occupation, disobedience and/or resistance became an inevitable choice. Warning searched-for individuals or delivering forged papers was often a less dangerous approach than a blanket refusal to cooperate with the occupation authorities. The dynamic of engagement in resistance activities is thus very different for each of these groups.

This distinction between intentional and functional resistance also offers the possibility of reconstructing a chronology of resistance engagement different from the chronology of battle outlined above. Practical difficulties of logistics and organization are a major factor that occupies a central place in the first generation of historiography on resistance movements. Establishing contacts between exile governments in London and resistance movements on the Continent and, often only in a second stage, among resistance movements themselves, working in complete isolation, took one to two years. Facilitating these contacts through radio transmitters, rather than emissaries and «mail-boxes,» in southern France, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland, took even longer. Charles de Gaulle’s emissary, Jean Moulin, for example, was parachuted into the French Alps in January 1942, but only after a perilous return to London in February 1943 did he succeed, at the end of May 1943, in creating the Conseil National de la Résistance (National Resistance Committee), representing most movements, parties, and trade unions in occupied France. The Belgian government-in-exile set up a highly inventive system of financial support for workers in hiding to escape labor conscription in Germany, through guaranteed loans by Belgian banks, but the scheme started functioning only in April 1944. Conflicts between movements, emissaries, British services, and exile governments, the arrest of emissaries, and highly successful infiltration operations by the German counterintelligence, Abwehr, notoriously in the Netherlands in the so-called Englandspiel, all made these efforts long and costly in terms of human lives.

Resistance was also intrinsically a bet on the future. The military and geopolitical prospects were therefore a crucial factor: the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941; the U.S. declaration of war in December of that year; the halting of the German offensive on the eastern and North African fronts; the first German defeats, especially at Stalingrad at the start of 1943; and the Allied landings in North Africa, Italy, Normandy, and the Provence all affected public opinion in the occupied countries and, by creating hope for a liberation from German presence, encouraged resistance. Even more decisive were the concrete policies pursued by Nazi Germany in the occupied regions. During the killing spree of the Einsatzgruppen on the eastern front in the summer of 1941, there was hardly any organized resistance, and the local Jewish population was completely taken by surprise by these indeed inconceivably brutal actions. It was only in the following months that the partisan movement organized its actions behind enemy lines. During the razzias (roundups) of the summer of 1942, the Jewish population of western Europe was similarly taken by surprise. The fact that the first three months of deportations represented two-thirds of the total number for the whole of the war shows the effectiveness of the various forms of resistance to the German policies that developed in the ensuing months. Among them, Jewish immigrant militants of the communist parties in both France and Belgium—the famous Francs tireurs et Partisans–Main d’Œuvre Immigrée—formed the most radical units of urban guerrillas in a fight for survival, targeting also the personnel organizing the deportations. One year later still, the labor draft took the form of massive roundup operations, but by the end of the summer of 1943, the yields of the German labor recruitment policies dropped dramatically, thereby fueling the resistance with tens of thousands of clandestines to hide, feed, and, for a minority among them, enroll in Maquis formations preparing for guerrilla warfare. The failure of the labor draft from the summer of 1943 onward was undoubtedly the main success of the resistance in western Europe and the main factor explaining its transformation from an active minority into a mass movement involving all sectors of the occupied society.

The combination of these factors helps to explain the early engagement of nationalists in the resistance, during the fall of 1939 in Poland; the summer of 1940 in Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium; from April 1941 in Serbia and Greece; followed by the simultaneous entry of communist militants all over occupied Europe in June and July of 1941. A broadening of the basis occurred late in 1942 and in the course of 1943, particularly through the dynamic of «functional» resistance involving resisters with a very different profile. In late 1943 and during 1944, the expectation of a German retreat then created space either for a process of unification of a national resistance front anticipating the formation of a new postwar political coalition, such as in most western European countries, or a situation of civil war in the absence of prospects for coalition and power-sharing, such as in eastern and southern Europe. Resistance is thus a central category in understanding the war experience and postwar trajectory of European societies, but one whose impact has to be measured carefully in political, social, and even cultural terms depending on the geographical and chronological setting, and it is furthermore necessary to distinguish between the different forms of engagement in the struggle against it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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