In this paper I describe how I have struggled to find a viable identity for myself as a “psychoanalytic psychotherapist”, that is as someone who uses psychoanalytic theory but whose practice is defined as not fully analytic. In trying to make sense of why I am put in a position of having to work on the basis of a misaligned clinical identity (psychoanalytic theory informing a less than psychoanalytic practice), I investigate the rationale for distinguishing a pure psychoanalysis from other forms of psychoanalytic practice. I argue that what started out as an attempt to widen psychoanalytic practice so as to work with a broader range of patients has ended up dividing psychoanalytic practice into clinical entities that do not do justice to the reality of clinical practice. This is because these distinctions are based on a particular logic, that of using parameters, which are then aggregated to create distinctions between different types of psychoanalytic practice in terms of how far they deviate from a version of pure and parameter-free psychoanalysis. But with the emergence worldwide of different versions of psychoanalysis it is becoming more and more difficult to invoke a single standard of pure psychoanalysis from which all other types of analytic practice are meant to deviate. In particular I argue that the parametric logic of using session frequency as a way of distinguishing between different forms of psychoanalytic practice can distort our understanding of analytic process, which depends on an understanding of time not only in its quantitative form (the clock time of frequency of sessions) but also how time is experienced and given meaning in the course of analytic work with any particular patient. In the light of this argument I then describe the particular way I have found of creating a viable analytic identity for myself, which is by instituting and maintaining a split between my private and public analytic selves: with my patients I count myself a psychoanalyst, but with my analytic colleagues I call myself a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Through an exploration of how inequalities in knowledge and skill can be managed in communities of practitioners, I end by imagining a form of analytic community in which such a split between my private and public analytic selves might no longer be necessary.