An Interesting Analytical Hour

That much in the way of gathering up loose ends towards the close of an analysis usually takes place as the termination of a great deal of preliminary work, and that much of this summing up may occur in a relatively short space of time, is something that has happened to all analysts. The following report is an instance of this kind, and may be deserving of mention on account of the large amount of material that became crystallized, and the short space of time, one hour, in which it took place. It might also be stated that an important factor in the process was the fact that for a few days before this gathering up of loose ends took place, the patient knew that the treatment was to end in three weeks, owing to external circumstances, even though the patient was not completely cured at the time the decision had to be made, and I could not be at all certain that the most important elements in the neurosis would be cleared up before the final session.

Though at the risk of not giving a clear picture of the entire neurosis, but with the object of limiting this report in so far as it is possible to the interesting results of the one hour of analysis, and adding extra material only where necessary, I shall begin with the communications made by the patient at the beginning of the hour. These consisted of the report of two dreams. One was that I stood at the book-case containing my magazines, and that I asked the patient whether I had ever given him any of the magazines, to which he replied 'no'. The other dream was a very vague one, in which there was the question of changing or exchanging one thing for another, a window, or something for a window.

The patient began the associations to the first dream by stating that in the first dream there was the thought that in the magazine that he expected me to give him, he expected to find valuable psycho-analytical material, some of which I might have written. The