THE TIME-COURSE OF ANALYTIC-PSYCHOTHERAPY - A SEMIOTIC PHENOMENOLOGY

The distinctness and linear order of 'beginning' and 'termination' in analytic psychotherapy is questioned by examining therapy as a process of multiple transitions between experience and hermeneutic representa tion. It is argued that critical points such as beginning and terminat ion may be established at the level of experience, but must be rendere d relative at the level of representation, to allow the therapeutic di scourse semiotic freedoms essential for its development. This approach subjects critical points to a 'middleness principle', whereby all pha ses of therapy must be analyzed according to the way they connect to p receding and subsequent experience. Such analysis is afforded by re-de fining critical points according to the way they shape the therapeutic discourse, which is illustrated in fragments of therapeutic conversat ion. The article loosely adopts a 'deconstructive' or 'destratified' s tyle of writing, to illustrate the manner in which the collapse of tem poral order may reshape the therapeutic discourse.