ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the references by Anna Freud to the timelessness of the unconscious are empirically mistaken and hearken back to the narcissistic longing for indications of the immutable and timeless in human nature as found. After 1929, with the completion of her analysis with Freud, Marie Bonaparte, who was keenly interested in I. Kant’s ideas, rekindled Freud’s interest, although his thinking about Kant’s idea of time dates back to 1907. Although Freud’s argument does not refute the Kantian notion of time, Freud’s thought is profoundly incompatible with Kant’s subjective idealism. The chapter explores the essential elements of Freud’s meaning by means of a typical example of repressed unconscious elements and processes. The irony of Freud’s use of the term “timeless” to characterize unconscious contents and processes is that it makes the timelessness and immortality of the psyche directly proportional to the extent to which the psyche is neurotic.
