Post-termination self-analysis and the relinquishment of the psychoanalytic frame: thoughts on a fragment of...

Months following the traumatic termination of my analysis I engaged in self-analytic work in which I was able to rework the events of the termination and their significance in terms of my history. Fundamental differences between my self-analytic process and that of my formal analysis led me to consider how termination may affect the ensuing self-analytic process. In this paper, I look at aspects of termination that have to do with the dissolution of symbiotic ties with the analyst; I will try to show that relinquishment of the frame provides an impetus both for consolidation and reworking of an identification with the analyst, which may enable the analysand to develop a personal way of thinking about the unconscious that differs from that of the analyst. I further suggest that there are inevitable limitations to the analytic process which manifest in the development of irreducible bastions, and that the dissolution of the frame at termination provides an opportunity for self-analytic resolution of those bastions which may allow self-understanding beyond what could have been attained within the formal analytic setting. Finally, I offer some speculations on how these processes may have played out between Freud and Fliess in Freud's self-analysis.