Boundaries of timelessness. Some thoughts about the temporal dimension of the psychoanalytic space

The psychoanalytic situation can be usefully observed from the perspective of its specific temporal structure, consisting of a complex inter-connexion of different temporalities. I stress the importance of interpreting the mental events happening around the temporal boundaries between the analyst's consulting room and the outside world. Time plays a key role in psychoanalysis--a process which is always terminated, while being intrinsically interminable--because bringing about change is one of its fundamental therapeutic functions and because the transference operates according to temporally-determined mechanisms, such as regression and repetition, involving the actualization of aspects of the past in the present. I use the expression 'contrast of temporalities' to describe a fruitful and therapeutic conflict between the strict time limitations imposed upon the setting by analytic technique, on the one hand; and, on the other, the atmosphere of timelessness so often characterizing the experience of psychoanalysis, both as a whole and within individual sessions. I trace the roots of this timelessness to the original experience of unidimensional time ('infantile omnipresent'), which is in turn related to the timeless quality of our unconscious life.