ABSTRACT
Internalization is a central concept in psychoanalysis. It is used to designate not only central psychological processes by which the psyche is originally formed in infancy, but also certain crucial aspects of the therapeutic process of psychoanalysis. The category of psychoanalyst also is essentially subjective. First, the process of internalizing the capacities involved in being a psychoanalyst is essentially incomplete; second, the processes of internalization help to constitute the subjectivity of the psychoanalyst. If a psychoanalyst is never finished internalizing his role as a psychoanalyst, it would seem that some of that unfinished internalization ought to revolve around the concept of internalization itself. There may be gradual increments—of introjection, incorporation, internalization—by which a primitive superego is replaced by the image of the analyst, but it is essentially the same suggestive process. Part of the internalization of the capacity to be a psychoanalyst is the recognition that the process of internalization must always be incomplete.
