Notes on Sigmund Freud’s “Analysis Terminable and Interminable” (1937)

Scribbled Notes, without editing

1

Freud begins by discussing the time of analysis. He claims that clinical experience teaches analysts that psychotherapeutic effects take time. Yet, there have been attempts to shorten this time. Yet, the attempt to shorten its duration is also a demand, he claims, made by medical science, which he regards as an earlier science, because of its “impatient contempt.” Medical science sees neurosis as “uncalled-for” because it is the result of an invisible injury. Already, this seems quite interesting, because one of the ways that Freud is distinguishing medical science from psychoanalysis is in the former’s impatient attitude. Psychoanalysis therefore introduces into medical science a delay in the expectation of gratification.

He then turned to Otto Rank’s book on birth-trauma. Rank attempted to locate a cause, which appears as if it were a myth: the trauma of being born, which leads to a fixation on one’s mother. In some sense, what Rank did, according to Freud, was to reduce the entire treatment and hence alleviation of neurotic illness on the analysis of this trauma. For Rank, this shortens the analysis, since such an analysis would only require a few months, at most. Freud claimed that Rank’s hypothesis was designed to accommodate the “haste” of American life. Freud next claims that the technique would be analogous to removing an oil lamp from a house that was already set on fire.

Freud admits that he was able to expedite the treatment of one patient but it resulted in his eventual refusal to go any further, a refusal to take the next step in his treatment since he had now found himself highly comfortable. He wrote that the treatment “was in danger of failing as a result of its partial success.” The essay continues with a case of a patient whose treatment, his recovery, was paradoxically also the result of its failure, precisely because the underlying inhibition had remained. The patient continued to have moments of suffering, fragments as it were. The essay therefore examines what within a patient’s recovery is of more interest than his illness. Freud then discusses the importance of “fixing a time-limit,” which is not a standard time-limit but a device deployed, spontaneously, as it were, as if it were a “blackmailing device.” He wrote: “it is effective provided that one hits the right time for it.”

It is on this basis that we can understand the centrality of time as a device used by the analyst within analytic treatment. From this perspective, it is clear that Freud did not deploy the time-limit as a standard of treatment, but as a device used in relation to the particularity of the case. There are limitations: “for once the analyst has fixed the time-limit he cannot extend it; otherwise the patient would lose all faith in him.” It is on this note that Freud ends the first part of his essay: in a tone that addresses the importance of time-limits as an analytic device deployed sensitively by the analyst in order to produce intended psychoanalytic effects (e.g., in this case, the surfacing of childhood memories).

2

This second part deals with a deeper related question: is there a natural end to analysis, or, rather, can analysis as such come to an end? Freud begins by addressing the meaning of such a phrase as “the end of analysis.” There is a practical answer, which Freud hitherto accepted: an analysis ends when the analysand and analyst cease to meet one another. However, even here, from my own experience, I can demonstrate that this is not the case. In fact, from my point of view, it is clear that it is possible for analysis to go on indefinitely precisely by the refusal to meet the analyst. We could point to a prominent Lacanian theorist named Slavoj Zizek for confirmation of this point: his extended interpretations, which are like the interpretations of the unconscious, go on indefinitely, infinitely, and yet they constitute a seriality which fosters a repetition. In any case, perhaps the ending is when the analysand no longer feels himself to be in need of help against his suffering, or perhaps the analyst judges that the important memories have all surfaced or been said and that the resistances have been mostly conquered, and the repetitions of pathological processes have been truncated. Freud distinguishes an “incomplete” from “unfinished” analysis, whereby the former refers to a cessation of any movement toward these goals.

But then Freud proposes a more “ambitious” meaning of the “end of analysis” whereby all gaps in memory have been filled, presumably with constructions. However, before undertaking this possibility, Freud cautions that we should look to the clinical evidence to ascertain whether or not such things do in fact happen. Freud writes that there are two possible questions worth pursuing: first, are the instincts overly strong?, and/or, second, is there a trauma which the immature ego is unnable to master? The one is “constitutional” and the other is “accidental.” At this point, however, one wonders the extent to which trauma is “accidental.” It is a question of what is meant by “accident.” Does it mean “contingent?” Does it imply, by accidental, that it was not necessary, or, moreover, that trauma is not constitutive of each speaking-being, in one way or another? I put aside these questions in order to be attentive to the essay itself.

Freud believes that the traumatic situation is more susceptible to psychoanalytic treatment than the instinctual or constitutional one. Freud comments upon the strengthening of the patient’s ego, and the replacement of the correct solution to the inadequate decision made in early life. However, it seems to me that this second point is itself another manner of rectifying the former, the weakened ego, since the ego, in this case, is itself complicit in the chain of memories, that is, in the knowledge about one’s life and ultimately one’s self. Hence, the rectification of the ‘gap,’ which may very well be a traumatic gap, could include an identification with it such that the gap is isolated without repetition. In any case, this is a point that Freud did not explore. Freud nonetheless says that only when the patient’s ego is strengthened against the trauma and a correct solution to the inadequate decision was made “can one speak of an analysis having been definitely ended.” I will refer to this as the “definitive end of analysis,” whereby the word “definitive” or “definite” is a casting off, or a “from,” as in “de-,” of the “finite.” Perhaps it could even be seen as an exile.

Freud was tempted to claim that the strength of the instinct, a constitutional factor, could be responsible for the emergence of the second, alteration of the ego (by the trauma), except that the latter can also be taken independent of the first. Freud says that, in any case, the most important question is not where or not there has been a cure but what obstacles stand in the way of a cure. Freud concludes this session with a claim: “if we wish to fulfil the more exacting demands upon analytic therapy, our road will not lead us to, or by way of, a shortening of its duration.” This conclusion he comes to have addressing two case histories which were decades prior for their future outcomes.

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Freud returns to the question of the strength of the instincts and the alterations of the ego, and highlights that his concern is really with the strength of the instincts. This is the constitutional question. Freud does not reject the possibility that a surge in instinct could occur later in life, which shows that he is discussing the drive and not “instinct” proper to biology. It is for this reason that he writes “the strength of instincts at the time” instead of “the constitutional strength of the instincts.” Freud does not aim to make the instinctual demand disappear but rather to permanently dispose of the instinctual demand. He softens it even more: the goal is to “tame the instinct,” that is to say “the instinct is brought completely into the harmony of the ego, becomes accessible to all the influences of the other trends in the ego and no longer seeks to go its independent way to satisfaction.” We can read this in a number of ways. Perhaps one way to read it is to think about the instinct’s satisfaction becoming a means of identification, that is, an anchor or thread which holds something together for the patient. This is certainly a way to think about taming since the goal would not be to cure the instinct, nor to completely remove it of its satisfaction, but rather to use it as a thread to hold something together.

At this point, Freud suggests that some theory could be helpful, and it is in this sense that he uses “metapsychology.” He even says that such speculation could be close to “phantasying.” This is interesting since he is showing that a certain amount of theorizing, of fantasy, in the service of psychoanalysis is not something that would be rejected. Perhaps there is a psychoanalytic fantasy, and it is in this way that theory is welcomed by psychoanalysts. It merely becomes a question of what constitutes that theory, and how to qualify it as psychoanalytic. It is a question worth pursuing in detail. I will not do so now.

Freud then reminds us that the strength of the instinct is important when addressing the possibility of “taming” it. He even seems to suggest that the entire outcome of taming is rendered more or less possible by its constitutional strength. There are two moments when we know that the instinctual force is reinforced: puberty and menopause. During each moment, a neurosis can set in, suddenly. He says that at this moment the repression can set in, “like dams against the pressure of water.” Traumas can also cause these dams to break.

I note with interest that there is no mention whatsoever in this text yet of the superego, but only of the conflict of the Ego and the instincts. Freud claims that all repressions are set in during the childhood period and it is not possible anymore in later life for repression to set in. This is likely why the superego is of no importance in this discussion, since its effect is there or not, and cannot be altered except at the level of the instinct. Freud wrote that “analysis, however, enables the ego, which has attained greater maturity and strength, to undertake a revision of these old repressions; a few are demolished, while others are recognized but constructed afresh out of more solid material.” He then refers to these as “new dams” which have a new degree of “firmness from the earlier ones.” In a sense, then, what analysis offers is actually a better mode of repression, which operates as a correction against the difficult earlier repression — the problematic dam.

Again, we can see that this justifies my earlier hypothesis that the ego is itself a dam, through its identification with the instinctual satisfaction in the form of a symptom.

I continue, nonetheless. Freud suggests that the “all” is one way to master the instincts. I use this “all” with the phallic or masculine undertones: “we know that the first step towards attaining intellectual mastery of our environment is to discover generalizations, rules and laws which bring order into chaos.” This point is not necessarily so for all speaking-beings, and this is a point to which I think Freud missed. There is another manner of bringing order into chaos which consists of leaning on a law which is mastered by the other, or on remaining within the feminine side of sexuation. Freud continues: something is left over by these generalizations, “residual phenomena,” which are invaluable for “genetic research.” This point imagines science in a way which the contemporary sciences would not recognize, in my view. Are the sciences ultimately about the establishment of general laws? It is not so clear, in actuality. For example, Paul Feyerabend shows us that against the attempt to establish general laws by the Nazis, which his parents supported, he turned to the “satisfactions of science.” Here, it was not about generalizable laws but about innovative discoveries, which could occur in any way whatsoever. Hence, the very concept of a “paradigm” crashes, since method is abolished and one occupies a world of not-all, which cannot be generalized, but which nonetheless dominates in some way outside of the universal.

This entire passage from Freud — where he likens the development of the speaking-being to the development of societies or paradigms of thought — is overturned by Lacan. For example, Freud suggests that residues of earlier development phases in the sadistic-anal phase are not succeeded by the phallic-genital one but remain as residues. Lacan aimed to show that this is not so much a development as a pathway. Even Freud intimates as such when he writes that “one feels inclined to doubt sometimes whether the dragons of primaeval days are really extinct.”

Freud then pursues the hypothesis that there will always be instinctual constitutional factors that remain as remnants and that analysis may never be able to fully achieve its aim of taming them. It can only partially achieve them. He produces a modest and precise formula: “in claiming to cure neurosis by ensuring control over instinct [analysis] is always right in theory but not always right in practice.” Freud repeats in a more succinct way: “if the strength of the instinct is excessive, the mature ego, supported by analysis, fails in its task, just as the helpless ego failed formerly. It’s control over the instinct is improved, but it remains imperfect because the transformation in the defensive mechanism is only incomplete.” In the end, the “end of analysis” has as its major obstacle, therefore, the constitutional strength of the instinct and not the efficiency, necessarily, of its instruments.

4

A new problem presents itself: the instinctual conflict must be present at the time of analysis, since if it is not, one cannot attempt to assist the patient in taming it. Yet, there are latent conflicts, which show themselves in various ways, which appear to be sleeping, or dormant. These perhaps can be treated, and it is a question as to whether or not to awaken them. There is a questionable technique, according to Freud, which consists of bringing about real suffering through frustration and the damming up of libido. Yet, Freud maintains that one only uses this technique to treat a conflict that is currently active. It brings the conflict out into the open in order to “develop it to its highest pitch, in order to increase the instinctual force available for its solution.” Freud then says that “if, however, what we are aiming at is a prophylactic treatment of instinctual conflicts that are not currently active but merely potential, it will not be enough to regulate sufferings which are already present in the patient and which he cannot avoid.” He continued, “we should have to make up our minds to provoke fresh sufferings in him; and this we have hitherto quite rightly left to fate.”

It is a curious statement, one which opens up an ethical can of worms. It is, moreover, a question of “fate,” of “vying with fate.” Here, the fate of the instincts are perhaps interrupted by the analyst’s treatment, by the analyst’s desire. Freud questions therefore the fate of the instinct/drive in order to think about the possible intervention by the analyst’s desire. Here, something is asked about the nexus of fate and destiny which is worth exploring, but I will not do so here. In any case, Freud ventures the following question: “could we, for the purposes of prophylaxis, take the responsibility of destroying a satisfactory marriage, or causing a patient to give up a post upon which his livelihood depends?” Freud then admits that we fortunately do not have to concern ourselves with this since it is not in our powers to produce such an effect.

Freud reasons that there is really only one option: “we tell the patient about the possibilities of other instinctual conflicts, and we arouse his expectation that such conflicts may occur in him.” Freud says that the hope is that this knowledge or insight might activate those conflicts in the analysand if they are indeed dormant.

5

Freud summarizes: the success of analysis, and the prevention of future illness, depends upon three factors. First, there is trauma. Second, there is the relative strength of the instincts. Third, there is the alteration of the ego. Freud writes something remarkable: “every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent.” He continues, “there was never any doubt that repression was not the only procedure which the ego could employ for its purposes.” Here, we find validation of Lacan’s preference for the binary or tripartite clinic of foreclosure, disavowal, and repression. Moreover, one finds that foreclosure is here, in 1934, discussed by Freud in an implicit manner, showing that there is something of the mechanism of foreclosure even in neurotic defense. It is for this reason, perhaps, that Freud turns to defense so frequently in his writings of this period.

Freud demonstrates different methods for concealing offending material from a book. One could ensure that the book is never printed or destroy every copy of the book. One could destroy offending passages, placing them through censorship processes. One could rewrite the book with opposing passages. One could produce gaps in a book, making it unreadable, and so on. He continues: “we may say that repression has the same relation to the other methods of defence as omission has to distortion of the text.” In other words, repression is a defense like any other, perhaps we could also say like foreclosure. The mechanism of defense serves to “keep off danger.” It is a question as to whether or not it is successful, but that is its function or purpose. Yet, the paradox is that these methods themselves can become dangers: “it sometimes turns out that the ego has paid too high a price for the services they render it.”

At this point, Freud turns to the “repeating” of these modes of defense during analysis. This is “half of our task as analysts,” whereby “the other half, the one which was first tackled by analysis in its early days, is the uncovering of what is hidden in the id.” Here, Freud shows that interpretation can feed the symptom, in a way, since he writes that “we prepare the way […] [by] making conscious by interpretations and constructions, but we have only interpreted for ourselves not for the patient so long as the ego holds on to its earlier defences and does not give up its resistances.”

6

Freud writes something striking: “we should not overlook the fact that the id and the Ego are originally one.” Freud says that we sometimes come across people who have a special “adhesiveness of the libido.” This is perhaps what is referred to as a “fixation.” He writes: “they cannot make up their minds to detach libidinal cathexes from one object and displace them onto another, although we discover no special reason for this cathectic loyalty.” These analyses go much slower. Yet, there are also the opposite types of people, one for whom the “libido seems particularly mobile; it enters readily upon the new cathexes suggested by analysis, abandoning its former ones in exchange for them.” Freud believes this second type of person has less lasting analytic effects because it is a bit like “writing on water.”

Freud discusses another class of patients with numerous fixed and rigid mental processes, which are akin also to the attitude of elderly people. He claims that it is explained as being “due to what is described as force of habit or an exhaustion of receptivity, a kind of psychical entropy.” He says that this remains a mystery and psychoanalysis has not yet plumbed the depths of this condition.

I am skipping some cases and points made by Freud to focus on areas that are of interest to me at this moment.

Freud turned toward Empedocles of Acragas who taught that two principles governed events in the life of the universe and mind, two principles in conflict with one another: love and strife. For this philosopher, love and strive were natural and instinctual, and do not have a conscious purpose. Love strives to “agglomerate the primal particles […] into a single unity, while the other, on the contrary, seeks to undo all those fusions and to separate the primal particles of the elements from one another.” Freud points out that each one gains the upper hand at times in history. Freud says that this is homologous to our ‘eros and thanatos.”

7

Freud opened this section with a comment upon Ferenczi’s 1927 paper on the problem of the termination of analyses. For Ferenczi, there is, according to Freud, a “comforting assurance” that “analysis is not an endless process, but one which can be brought to a natural end with sufficient skill and patience on the analyst’s part.” Freud took the paper simply as a warning not to attempt to shorten analysis. Freud says that “it cannot be disputed that analysts in their own personalities have not invariably come up to the standard of psychical normality to which they wish to educate their patients.”

At this point Freud makes an extended commentary on the “impossible profession.” I have commented at length upon this section in other places in my work and will avoid further commentary here except to point out that the extent to which an analysis can proceed, its duration, seems, according to Freud, to depend upon the analyst’s own analysis and how far he himself [sic] is willing to go.

Freud confesses here that analysis is not an “altogether endless business” and yet he reduces it, once again, to a “practical matter.” It is on this point that I disagree, since it is implied, in Freud’s text, that the duration of an analysis, going as far as possible, is a condition of the analyst’s desire — a point which is not given the attention it deserves in the text.

8

Freud concludes with a discussion of two corresponding themes that give analysis unusual trouble, and they are tied to a distinction between the sexes. There is something dissimilar and yet also “corresponding” between them. For the female, “an envy for the penis.” Freud adds to this a “repudiation of femininity.” Yet, he continues, “in both cases it is the attitude proper to the opposite sex which has succumbed to repression.” He says that Fliess had the attitude that the antithesis between the sexes was the “true cause of the primal motive force of repression.” Freud seems to prefer a biological answer rather than Fliess’s psychological answer. We have only to think or refer to Lacan’s “there is no sexual relation,” particularly as it develops in his later period of teaching, to see that position of Lacan, without at all discounting a Lacanian biology.

The two themes: female, “wish for a penis,” and male, “struggle against passivity.” A successful analysis, for Ferenczi was to master these two complexes. Freud claims that it is “preaching to the winds” to try to persuade a woman to abandon her wish for a penis or to seek to convince a man that the passive attitude does not always signify castration.

Here, Freud concludes that “resistance prevents any chance from taking place, that everything stays as it was.” I call this “fate.” He continued, “we often have the impression that with the wish for a penis and the masculine protest we have penetrated through all the psychological strata and have reached bedrock, that thus our activities are at an end. This is probably true …” It is a refusal of femininity, here, that Freud highlights — something of the repudiation of femininity at the end of analysis. I quote: “the repudiation of femininity can be nothing else than a biological fact, a part of the great riddle of sex.” There is a footnote: “man is [not] repudiating his passive attitude [in masculine protest] but the social aspect of femininity. […] What they reject is not passivity in general, but passivity towards a male.”