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It is not possible to publish a journal devoted to clinical psychoanalysis without noticing that in most of the known world this particular therapeutic technique is increasingly regarded as obsolete and worthless. In fact, it was partly to counter this impression that this Journal was founded, in order to provide the objective reader with evidence to judge the value and effectiveness of psychoanalysis. Enhancing that value and effectiveness requires that we make the effort to define the reasonable limits of psychoanalytic treatment. This we have begun to do in the present issue, the first of many, we have no doubt, to be devoted to this topic.
In this issue we have taken up two aspects of the question: How long should an analysis reasonably last? Are certain clinical problems such as perversions and homosexuality beyond even the widening scope of psychoanalysis?
As to the first question, we are certain that not a single one of our readers, whether as analyst or patient, or both, has not at some point in the treatment asked both himself and his analyst: “How long is this going to go on?” Experienced analysts will recognize, of course, that there may be many reasons for such questions to come up, having to do with the psychic forces at play at any given moment. However, the question becomes increasingly acute and perplexing, especially to the analyst, as the years stretch into decades without a termination in sight. It is to the problem of the unusually long analysis that we address the first part of this issue.
We are particularly grateful to Dr. Carl Adatto for his permission to publish, as our introduction to the question, the theoretical portions of his unpublished paper “The ‘Interminable’ Analysis.” This paper has had a long and illustrious history amid psychoanalytic clinical seminars as an unpublished classic. Dr. Adatto has chosen not to