The “Monday Crust” in the Disorders of the Self

“Even short interruptions have a slightly obscuring effect on the work. We used to speak jokingly of the ‘Monday crust' when we began work after the day of rest on Sunday.” Freud was the first analyst to note that even the minor interruptions in the continuity of an ongoing analysis which were occasioned by weekends left a mark on the observed analytic process (Freud, 1913, p. 127). He was able to make this observation even though he usually saw his patients six times a week, Sunday being the only day of rest. Since Freud's day, contemporary psychoanalytic practice has become somewhat less tightly scheduled. Analysands now are usually seen four or five times a week, and the weekend interruption has become correspondingly longer. The “slightly obscuring effect” noted by Freud often seems to be magnified into a quite obscuring disturbance. In general analysts are aware that disruptions in the analytic process or changes in regular scheduling leave a discernible impact on the analytic process. Published case reports occasionally call attention to the severe reactions sometimes precipitated in patients by the analyst's vacation. Such reactions—usually associated with an increase in the patient's symptoms—are generally understood to be more or less intense varieties of separation anxiety and may be thought to herald the working-through process which is anticipated for the termination phase of the analysis. Less attention, however, has been paid to the weekend interruption, and the psychoanalytic literature contains few references to Freud's discerning observation of the “Monday crust.”1

Freud did not discuss the intrapsychic events leading up to the formation of the