ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a model of working through based on concepts from artificial intelligence that are closely related to nonlinear dynamics systems theory. Freud introduced the terms wearing away and working over in 1895 but first systematically examined the i.e. of working through in "Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through", where he defined working through as the arduous task of allowing "the patient time to become more conversant with this resistance". The chapter offers an explanation of the process of working through based on a model of mental function derived from the fields of artificial intelligence and computer science. Artificial intelligence has several advantages over previous sources of psychoanalytic theory. A theory of decisions emerged following the Second World War. Analogies between psychoanalysis and simulated annealing are striking. The annealing algorithm provides a plausible model for human emotional problem solving when the use of preexisting solutions must be abandoned for whatever reason.
