ABSTRACT
In considering the relevance of temporality to notions of subjectivity in analytical practices it is necessary to distinguish “lived time” from our ordinary conceptions of time as cosmological and as dateable. Heidegger emphasizes that clock-time, as public time, is necessary and that temporality is the condition for its discoverability and its necessity. Merleau-Ponty emphasizes the present temporal dimension over the future in his theorizing. Hoffman warns of the dangers of nostalgia (“an ineffectual relationship to the past” in which time is static) and of alienation (“an ineffectual relationship to the present”) as defences against discontinuities. As Owen described in relation to his reading and, later, his writing, many individuals experience creative absorption as “timeless”. The phenomenological method of attending to the descriptions of a person’s lived experiences enables us to expand traditional psychoanalytic analyses of lived time.
