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Until now, the principle of working through has not been fully integrated into the body of psychoanalytic theory. The factors making for this deficiency have been discussed; special emphasis was placed on the role of affective experience and learning theory as additional clarifying principles. While it is recognized that the process of working through results in the acceptance of insightful interpretations, with their potential impact as reorganizing experiences, it is difficult to understand the time lag involved. It is suggested that the affectional, cue and reward aspects of the transference situation itself throw considerable light on the need for time in the working-through process.
Psychoanalysis sets as its goal the establishment of relative freedom from neurosis and characterological reorganization, which result in a psychic state substantially more satisfactory than that which existed when the patient came for treatment. In this sense it differs from the simply supportive psychiatric therapies, which generally aim at overcoming a temporary emotional decompensation and re-establishing the state of affairs existing before the acute episode, with all of the latter's potentialities for repetition of such episodes. The role of psychoanalysis in opening the way to new modes of functioning would imply that the establishment of normal characterological defensive operations would of necessity have to replace the pathological ones; these are not simply reinforced but are in fact done away with. If, as I have suggested, these two processes occur concomitantly, an otherwise inexplicable time lag incident to the process of working through would seem to be a necessary condition for achieving therapeutic results.