Analysis without apparent resistance

With this addition to the slender literature of self-revelations by psychoanalysts, the author also makes what may be his final contribution to psychoanalysis. An episode of hypomania during a visit to his birthplace, Vienna, triggered a dream whose elucidation allowed him to recover a primal scene and complete a self-analysis begun 65 years earlier. Shortly thereafter, a stroke left him hemiplegic and forced the author to confront the final stage of a productive life. After describing a range of adaptations to age and failing health, he explores the role hypomania played in his reconciling with the inevitability of impending death. Analysis of the contending forces also deepens our understanding of the transformations the creative process undergoes in advanced age, a topic the author leaves for younger hands to perfect.