That "Impossible" Profession

THE TITLE for this talk occurred to me at the end of one of those working days when all my clever insights turned out to be wrong, when I discovered the right interpretation only after the patient had left, when what I considered profound insight was revealed as complicated confusion, and when my kindly passivity was felt by my patients merely as inattentiveness. On such days I have attempted to reassure myself by recalling that such feelings pass and that I might be exaggerating the difficulties in practicing psychoanalysts. But even sober reflection leaves no doubt that the practice of psychoanalysis makes arduous demands on the psychoanalyst. I should like to address myself to the following questions: What are the extraordinary difficulties that seem to be inherent in the profession? Are there any factors that might play a mitigating role?

Freud himself seemed to be of a pessimistic frame of mind in this regard and I want to quote part of a paragraph from "Analysis Terminable and Interminable" (6):

Here let us pause for a moment to assure the analyst that he has our sincere sympathy in the very exacting demands he has to fulfil in carrying out his activities. It almost looks as if analysis were the third of those 'impossible' professions in