ABSTRACT
The analysis is to be a true reeducation, the whole process of the patient’s character-formation, which was accompanied by the protective mechanism of instinctual repression, must be followed back to its instinctual foundations. The phrase ‘sooner or later’ contains a hint of the importance of the time factor if an analysis is to be fully completed. The completion of an analysis is possible only if, so to speak, unlimited time is at one’s disposal. In some cases bringing the analysis abruptly to an end may produce results. While the pressure of an accidental external circumstance sometimes hastens the analysis, pressure imposed by the analyst often unnecessarily prolongs it. A truly cured patient frees himself from analysis slowly but surely; so long as he wishes to come to analysis, he should continue to do so. One theoretically important experience in really completed analyses is the almost invariable occurrence of symptom transformation before the end.
