On Construction in Freud's Work

The fruit of the very last period of his thought, and written two years before he plunged into definitive silence, Constructions in analysis (1937a) is a precious jewel in Freud's work. This text, inspired by remarkably vigorous thought, constitutes, moreover, an example of authentic psychoanalytic thinking, freed of the rationalizing prejudices which stand in the way of the development of a specific form of theory that Freud possessed to the highest degree.

Constructions in analysis is a sort of postscript to Analysis terminable and interminable (Freud, 1937b). This latter text, written in 1937 and published in June 1937, was followed in December of the same year by Constructions. Despite the late date of publication, Freud had in fact been preoccupied by this subject for a very long time. Already in ‘Little Hans’ (Freud, 1909a), we find the germ of a concept that Freud would only develop much later on. But it was with the ‘Wolf Man’ (Freud, 1909b) that the idea took shape in connection with the primal scene, as well as in his study on the psychogenesis of a case of female homosexuality (Freud, 1920).

As is often the case in Freud's work, it took time before the idea finally gave birth to a concept in 1937. There is more than one way of defining this work. The most convincing seems to me to be to consider it as a late solution to the problems posed by the impasses of the theory of technique which confer a somewhat pessimistic tone on Analysis terminable and interminable. This, anyway, is how I understand this energetic leap of Freud's thought leading him to return with surprising vitality to questions from which he had seemed to recoil.

In fact, Constructions offers clinical reflection a depth never attained before. It may be argued that this text represents Freud's last word on unconscious memory, and, in a more general way, on the particularities of psychical organization according to psychoanalysis. This is where its value lies and, furthermore it brings together i