On Freud’s "Analysis Terminable and Interminable"

186 Pages·2013·3.66 MB·English

by  Joseph Sandler

ON FREUD’S
“ON ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE”
CONTEMPORARY FREUD
Turning Points and Critical Issues
Series Editor: Gennaro Saragnano
IPA Publications Committee
Gennaro Saragnano (Rome), Chair; Leticia Glocer Fiorini (Buenos Aires), Consultant;
Samuel Arbiser (Buenos Aires); Paulo Cesar Sandler (São Paulo); Christian Seulin (Lyon);
Mary Kay O’Neil (Montreal); Gail S Reed (New York); Catalina Bronstein (London);
Rhoda Bawdekar (London), ex-officio as Publications Officer;
Paul Crake (London), IPA Executive Director (ex officio)
On Freud’s “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”
edited by Joseph Sandler
Freud’s “On Narcissism: An Introduction”
edited by Joseph Sandler, Ethel Spector Person, Peter Fonagy
On Freud’s “Observations on Transference-Love”
edited by Ethel Spector Person, Aiban Hagelin, Peter Fonagy
On Freud’s “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming”
edited by Ethel Spector Person, Peter Fonagy, Sérvulo Augusto Figueira
On Freud’s “A Child Is Being Beaten”
edited by Ethel Spector Person
On Freud’s “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego”
edited by Ethel Spector Person
On Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia”
edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini, Thierry Bokanowski, Sergio Lewkowicz
On Freud’s “The Future of an Illusion”
edited by Mary Kay O’Neil & Salman Akhtar
On Freud’s “Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence”
edited by Thierry Bokanowski & Sergio Lewkowicz
On Freud’s “Femininity”
edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini & Graciela Abelin-Sas Rose
On Freud’s “Constructions in Analysis”
edited by Sergio Lewkowicz & Thierry Bokanowski, with Georges Pragier
On Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”
edited by Salman Akhtar & Mary Kay O’Neil
On Freud’s “Negation”
edited by Mary Kay O’Neil & Salman Akhtar
On Freud’s “On Beginning the Treatment”
edited byChristian Seulin & Gennaro Saragnano
ON FREUD’S
“ANALYSIS TERMINABLE
AND INTERMINABLE”
Edited by
Joseph Sandler
Series Editor
Gennaro Saragnano
CONTEMPORARY FREUD
Turning Points and Critical Issues
KARNAC
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Sigmund Freud Copyrights; The Institute
of Psychoanalysis, London; The Hogarth Press; and Basic Books for permission
to reprint “Analysis Terminable and Interminable” as published in Sigmund
Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol.
23, trans. and ed. by James Strachey, Hogarth Press, London; and in Sigmund
Freud, The Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 5, ed. James Strachey,
Basic Books, New York
First published in 1991 by Yale University Press for
The International Psychoanalytic Association
This edition published in 2013, in assocation with
The International Psychoanalytical Association, by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 1991, 2013 The International Psychoanalytical Association
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-85575-759-2
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
Contents
Preface
JOSEPH SANDLER I vii
Introduction
JOSEPH SANDLER, ETHEL PERSON,
AND PETER FONAGY I ix
PART ONE ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND
INTERMINABLE (I 937)
SIGMUND FREUD I I
PART TWO DISCUSSION OF
"ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE" 141
A New Look at Freud's "Analysis Terminable and Interminable"
JACOB A. ARLOW 143
Contents I vi
Analysis Finite and Infinite
HARALD LEUPOLD-LOWENTHAL I 56
On Teaching ''Analysis Terminable and Interminable"
DAVID ZIMMERMANN AND
A. L. BENTO MOSTARDEIRO I 76
Obstacles to Analytic Cure
TERTTU ESKELINEN DE FOLCH I 93
On Metapsychology and Termination
ARNOLD M. COOPER I I06
Instinct in the Late Works of Freud
ANDRE GREEN I 124
Freud: An Imaginary Dialogue
DAVID ROSENFELD I 142
List of Contributors I r63
Index I r6s
Preface
Psychoanalysis has had the good fortune to be an international discipline
almost from its inception, thereby anticipating what has become a global
perspective in all areas-intellectual, cultural, and commercial. With the
increasingly rapid growth of psychoanalysis in different parts of the world,
each with a unique and important focus, the current leadership of the Inter
national Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) has looked to new modalities
of interchange. To this end the Council of the Association accepted my
proposal (in my capacity as chairman of the Publications Committee) for a
series of "teaching" volumes with a unique format.
Each of the publications in this series, entitled "Contemporary Freud:
Thrning Points and Critical Issues," will include one of Freud's classic papers
and commentary by a number of distinguished psychoanalytic teachers from
diverse theoretical perspectives and national backgrounds who have been
asked to shape their discussion as though for presentation in a teaching
seminar. To give a coherent picture of each psychoanalytic point of view,
contributors not only review the pertinent literature but also provide per
sonal interpretations of the paper in question, elucidating and discussing
important points and shedding light on ambiguous passages. They also com-
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viii I Joseph Sandier
ment on our present state of knowledge in the area addressed by the classic
paper. Each volume of the series is designed for use in teaching, but equally
it invites the reader's participation in a very high-level reading group or in a
kind of master class.
Because the main topic of the Thirty-Fifth Congress of the IPA was '1\nal
ysis Terminable and Interminable: Fifty Years Later," the Publications Com
mittee chose Freud's classic paper of I 937 as the subject of the first volume
in this new series. An earlier version of this text was published in paperback
and distributed to the membership at the IPA Congress in Montreal in 1987.
The time for editorial preparation and translation was necessarily short for
the first, limited edition; this Yale publication represents a more fully edited,
slightly revised version of the original discussion. There are plans under way
to publish this revised edition in the three other official languages of the IPA.
The Spanish edition will be published by Technipublicaciones of Madrid.
Three additional papers on the current topic, presented at the Montreal
Congress by Didier Anzieu, Harold Blum, and Isadoro Berenstein, have
been published previously in English in the International Journal of Psy
choanalysis, vol. 68, pt. I, January I 987; in French in the Revue Francaise
de Psychanalyse, vol. 51, no. 2, Spring I987; in German in the Zeitschrift
fur psychoanalytishe Theorie und Praxis, vol. 2, pt. I, 1987; and in Span
ish in the Argentinian Revista de Psicoandlisis, vol. 43, pt. 3, I986.
The second volume, "On Freud's 'On Narcissism: An Introduction,'"
will be published in a paperback edition concurrently with the IPA meeting
in Argentina in the summer of 1991 and subsequently in a cloth edition by
Yale University Press. Beginning with the third volume, hard-cover editions
will be distributed at each congress of the IPA. Each volume will be avail
able in all four of the official languages of the IPA: English, French, Ger
man, and Spanish.
For assistance in the preparation and editing of this volume, I am grateful
to Ethel Person, the current chairperson of the IPA Committee on Publica
tions, and to her two associate chairpersons, Peter Fonagy and Aiban Hagelin.
Special thanks are due to Lynne Mcilroy for her assistance in coordinating
international correspondence and permissions, to Doris Parker for checking
the English references, and to Jane Pettit for her invaluable work in proof
reading and checking the text. I also want to thank Gladys Topkis and Cyn
thia Wells of Yale University Press for their perseverance and exactitude in
shepherding this volume through to its final form.
JOSEPH SANDLER
Introduction
Andre Green writes in this volume that "Analysis Terminable and Intermi
nable" "may be regarded as one panel of a triptych which, taken as a whole,
forms Freud's testament." This paper is Freud's clinical legacy, accurately
summing up his sense of the potential and the limitations of psychoanalysis
as a therapeutic technique.
Because a theory of technique must of necessity be related to psychoana
lytic theory, different theoretical emphases incline the analyst to particular
therapeutic positions. Consequently, psychoanalytic technique and the under
lying theory of technique are constantly undergoing minor modifications.
Current areas of inquiry focus on the importance of interpreting transference
in "the here and now" in addition to (or as opposed to) the reconstruction of
the past, the role of insight in change, the nature of therapeutic action, and
the concept of therapeutic alliance. There is increasing attention paid to the
individual characteristics (including the limitations) of the patient and the
psychoanalyst as they influence therapeutic outcome.
A number of these central issues were delineated clearly or at least fore
shadowed in "Analysis Thrminable and Interminable." Though many have
deemed that paper pessimistic in tone, it might also be lauded for its real-
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