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Analysis Terminable and Interminable

The document discusses Freud's view on whether psychoanalysis can have a definite end or be interminable. It addresses factors that influence the length of treatment such as constitutional strength of drives, trauma experienced, and ego alterations. The document also discusses psychic conflict, resistance to loss of objects and identifications, and negative currents in the transference as aspects that can prolong analysis indefinitely.

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580 views

Analysis Terminable and Interminable

The document discusses Freud's view on whether psychoanalysis can have a definite end or be interminable. It addresses factors that influence the length of treatment such as constitutional strength of drives, trauma experienced, and ego alterations. The document also discusses psychic conflict, resistance to loss of objects and identifications, and negative currents in the transference as aspects that can prolong analysis indefinitely.

Uploaded by

fenriscd
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND

INTERMINABLE
In response to Ranks proposal of providing shorter
cures, Freud, using the example of the Wolf Man, makes
the central theme of this article the duration of the treatment
and the part of the transference which had not
been resolved (p. 218). The problem of the slow progress
of an analysis leads us to another, more deeply
interesting question: is there such a thing as a natural
end to an analysis? (p. 219). A terminated analysis supposes
that two conditions are fulfilled: first, the patient
must be relieved of symptoms, inhibitions, and anxieties,
and second, enough of the repressed must be
made conscious and elucidated, and enough of the resistance
conquered, so as to banish the risk of repetition.
Three factors affect the length of a treatment: the
constitutional strength of the drive, traumas, and the
alteration of the ego (pp. 220221). Freud indicated
that if the traumatic factor is preponderant, the situation
favors progress towards a definitively terminated
analysis (p. 220). Two factors are responsible for interminable
analyses: the constitutional strength of the
drive and an unfavorable alteration of the ego
acquired in the defensive struggle (pp. 220221) that
results in a kind of dissociation or restriction of the ego.
To follow dialectical reasoning by opposing a terminated
analysis to an interminable one might not
be of use for theoretical research on the end of analysis.
Too much stubbornness on this point could reinforce
a somewhat ideological position consisting, as Freud
wrote in Remembering, Repeating and WorkingThrough, in resolving every one of the patients
repressions and in filling all the gaps in his memory
(1914g, p. 220). A failure to achieve this end could
result from the constitutional strength of the drive
being rooted in biology.
In 1937, the metapsychological model explained
most closely the economic and dynamic aspects of
clinical experience, aspects that had previously eluded
explanations using the notion of opposition of forces.
Thus the end of analysis was described by means of a
much more complex psychic apparatus involving both
the first and second topographies, as well as two classes
of drives that place the psychic conflict at the center
of mental functioning.
When drive is mentioned in this late work, it must
be understood in the context of a two-drive model,
whether in its relation to the object or to the ego. The
pressure of the drives is countered by the ego, which
sets up a resistance using various defenses, some of
which, as reaction-formations, constitute the louder
aspects of neurosis. Though Freud used the term
transference-love, Eros is not the only component in
the dynamics of the transference. Various obstacles
face the analysis, with the risk of a negative therapeutic
reaction always on the horizon. These negative developments

might be moderate during the analysis only


to flare up at full intensity after its termination.
On the basis of two examples, Freud implicitly
introduced two essential ideas regarding the end of the
treatment. The first concerns what would now be
called the counter-transference in relation to a young
female homosexual. The second idea involves the time
of exploration necessary for the numerous returns of
negative currents.
This article implicitly links the themes of psychic
conflict, failure to achieve completion, the negative,
and counter-transference. Resistance to the loss of the
object and to the constitution of masculine and feminine
identifications is grounded in the dynamics of the
binding of the two drives, itself influenced by the
transference and the analysts interpretations.
In this work, Freud did not directly raise the issue
of the analysands desire to become an analyst,
although he very probably was referring to Sandor Ferenczi
when he mentions the belated disclosure of the
negative transference. The remnant of negative transference
that is the desire to become an analyst was
made the subject of a study by Jean-Paul Valabrega
concerning analytic training (1994).
The negative current is one working perspective outlined
by Freud in this late text. Several subsequent
authors, each in their own way, revisited the question of
the negative. As different as their works might be, one
common point becomes clear, namely that an analysis,
even in the favorable case of a transference neurosis, confronts
the protagonists with the play of binding and
unbinding of the drives and with inevitable negative phenomena.
The length of treatment, which has increased
over time, is due, in large part to a wish to analyze the
negative currents, particularly in the transference.

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