ABSTRACT
Time past and time future become possible only in the present moment, which is a kind of pivot on which all our memories and hopes and fears are poised. Time rules human life, and in fact all life on Earth, which blossoms and dies. Relating the past to the present in this way makes a cyclical theory of time more useful to the psychotherapist than a purely linear theory. One of the main opportunities for the therapist to work with the difficulty of time as a persecutor is at the beginning of each session. Therapists have to manage the curtailment of time in other ways. Ironically, the trouble for patients who find time rushing by too quickly, as well as for those for whom time passes slowly, is in a way the same. Time and the therapeutic hour are highly relevant to the matter of ending and leaving.
