Chapter 11: On Time And Temporality From A Clinic And Psychoanalytic Point Of View

We know from a phenomenological point of view that being and time are not external to each other. There should be no distinction between being and time. Time is neither external nor contingent on subjectivity. If we direct our attention to a more psychological point of view, we shall find time as a constitutional part of experience. So we could say that time is a concrete element of subjectivity as well as of every psychical feature.

If we now turn to psychoanalysis, we shall find time as one of the most central figures in clinical and theoretical contemporary debates. We can say that psychoanalysis has its own time. What is the idea of time we are focusing on here? Much has been written on what time means to psychoanalysis, much less on what it means to experience time in a psychoanalytical setting, as a patient and as an analyst. Psychoanalysis is first of all an emotional experience, as suggested by Thomas Ogden (2001). In this chapter, I would like to explore the experience of time in the way I experienced it in a recent session with a male patient in his third year of analysis.