Abstract

The analyst is the custodian of the setting; he would not begin an analysis knowing that there is no tomorrow at hand, but it is equally true that this rhythmic trend rests on an inevitable denial: we could not say «we stop here for today», if not trusting in the presumed certainty of a tomorrow. This certainty cannot be taken for granted. Without this inevitable denial, however, we would have to say goodbye to the mind’s extraordinary capacity to be curious about its own processing work. In the reflections that follow, however, it is not temporality within the analytical process that will be the focus of my attention, but the irruption of another time, alien to the rhythmic times of the analytical procedure. It is the occurrence of situations imposed by the realities of life, by the occurrence of areas of vulnerability linked to the analyst’s personal vicissitudes that interfere with the tightness of the contract established with the patient. A situation in which the analyst’s time interferes with the time of analysis with its own laws, profoundly altering its meaning.