ABSTRACT
Reflection on the post-analytic phase brings us face to face with two basic questions, one theoretical and the other technical and clinical. A patient who had had a long and difficult analysis because of the quality of the problems, and had put the analyst severely to the test, but who had concluded it satisfactorily, went back to the analyst to ask for advice about a relative. Other writers deny the possibility of true self-analysis, comparable to the analytic operations involved in the patient analyst relationship. The destiny of everything that has been acquired during analysis is bound up with tolerance of this uncertainty. Many would agree that self-analysis is something that concerns only the depressive position. This supports the conceptual scheme of a self-analytic function appearing on the threshold of the depressive position, which is reinforced and expands completely in the post-analytic phase.
