ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the theories of time which implicitly and explicitly underpin psychoanalytic accounts of individuals' subjectivities. It discusses that most of the psychoanalysts were practising and writing when modern European philosophers were questioning Enlightenment notions of subjectivity with its emphasis on science, on universality and the priority of reason; their own theorizing is remarkably devoid of their influences. The chapter focuses on their differing positions in relation to the question of whether the subject has a continuous identity through time, and also the subject’s relation to others’ time. It highlights how very diverse assumptions and theories of time are, whether they are the reflections and arguments of philosophers or the conscious and unconscious perspectives on time which are brought into the consulting room by both the analyst and the patient. The work of M. Heidegger, M. Merleau-Ponty, M. Foucault and E. Levinas enhance the possibilities for psychoanalytic practices which are more sensitive to individuals’ experiences of time.
