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Freud's last papers, published shortly before his death, intrigue us for the double perspective they afford. On the one hand, they offer an opportunity to share his retrospective evaluation of his whole “project,” as in “Analysis Terminable and Interminable” (1937a) or “An Outline of Psycho-Analysis” (1940a). On the other hand, we also look to them for clues to what Freud thought needed continued scrutiny—for what future post-Freudian “projects” should address. As we read these late papers we find ourselves as he did at the start of “Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence” (1940b): “I find myself for a moment in the interesting position of not knowing whether what I have to say should be regarded as something long familiar and obvious or as something entirely new and puzzling” (p. 275).1
One of these last papers, “Constructions in Analysis” (1937b), from which my title is taken, presents that double perspective, looking back but also raising questions for us today. Here (as in “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”) Freud is addressing the question of evidence: on what basis do we justify our technique? Freud begins the paper by invoking a favorite analogy, comparing the work of analysts to that of archaeologists. Our task, like theirs, “is to make out what has been forgotten from the traces which it has left behind, or more correctly, to construct it… . [The task is] of construction, or, if it is preferred, of reconstruction… . Both [analyst and archaeologist] have an undisputed right to reconstruct by means of supplementing and combining the surviving remains” (1937b, pp. 258-259). In looking back over his writings, Freud then considers how he has dealt with this topic:
If, in accounts of analytic technique, so little is said about ‘constructions’, that is because ‘interpretations’ and their effects are spoken of instead. But I think
that ‘construction’ is by far the more appropriate description. ‘