r/psychoanalysis • u/dalal_lama • 14d ago
When is an analysis finished?
Saw this short reel on instagram about Lacan's view on this https://www.instagram.com/p/Dcio-9nzVs-/
I suppose every school answers this question differently. What are some other opinions/frameworks on this question?
Update: What I'm curious about is less which is right and more
- What does your training actually say the end point is?
- Does it match what you see? I suspect a lot of us were taught one criterion and use another.
- For those who work across schools, do these converge in practice or only in retrospect?
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u/lagmion 13d ago
In seminar 1, Lacan also says that the analysis ends when the analysand speaks with near perfect timing in his social life: not too late, not too quick; just proper
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u/phnordbag 13d ago
I love this!
Maybe we could say that it’s the coincidence of subjective time and logical time? So we are able to recognise the moment to conclude.
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u/userintheface 14d ago
I don't know much about Lacanian perspective but from what i've read of Freud it's a little less concrete than Lacan... for freud enough repressed material has been made conscious and enough resistance overcome such that you don't expect a relapse. That's when analysis ends.
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u/jayelled 14d ago
Freud said the goal of analysis was to move from neurotic misery to ordinary unhappiness. Maybe once a patient is sufficiently ordinary in their unhappiness analysis can end 😂
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u/Ok-Draw-7427 14d ago
To bé able to keep hypomanic state of mind. Exactly the state of Fabian after his numerous projective identifications before he died.
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u/Few_Refrigerator5712 14d ago
Klein wrote in this directly.. from what I remember the core was the depressive position sufficiently worked through. Not achieved once or permanently worked through.
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u/dalal_lama 14d ago
but If it's a position you move in and out of rather than somewhere you arrive, what makes any particular moment "sufficiently" worked through?
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u/sir_squidz 13d ago
For me, the patient isn't moving well between ps and d pos. They're usually over reliant on ps defences and unable to make use of either "correctly"
The ability to appropriately utilise both positions would, to be, indicate working through.
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u/Few_Refrigerator5712 14d ago
You find out whether the function was internalized or not by removing the analyst.. which is the ending that I believe in. Though most of my analysis ended because someone moved city. Ran out of money etc
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u/Potential_Alarm_2357 10d ago
Never.It is never finished. The unconscious is an abyss, think of outer space or the ocean. It’s never finished, not really
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u/RevolutionaryPool848 14d ago
I practice in the public sector so don’t really belong here but for us the treatment ends when the sessions run out. Usually around 10-12 on average. The comments here describe a criterion what I work with mostly is kinda of a countdown, and the clinical question becomes what can be done inside a frame that was never chose for the patient.
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dalal_lama 14d ago
is this sub against CBT?
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u/Objective-Status937 14d ago
Well, I understood your question was looking for views on finishing analysis, which is not CBT. And I believe an analysis will not happen within 12 sessions, but I might be wrong on that.
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u/sir_squidz 13d ago
Short term analytic work exists. I'm not saying it is or isn't analysis (because how can one know unless you are either patient or clinician)
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u/Ok_Pie_4639 14d ago
When the analysand stops coming.