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Time is one of the concepts that has engaged man throughout the ages. Philosophers, physicists, psychologists, and psychoanalysts have attempted to understand its many ramifications, yet no consistent theory of time has been presented.
Psychoanalysts, in their daily work, in content as well as in schedule, are constantly involved with time. Objective measured time is linked to the setting of definite appointment schedules for periods of forty-five to fifty minutes, four or five times a week. Units of time are measured in years of treatment. These practical considerations are intimately linked to the fee structure of analytic work. We are paid for the time we spend with our patients. The analytic situation also involves another dimension of time—subjective, personal, psychological time. Recall, remembering, reconstruction, transference neurosis, repetition compulsion, fixation, regression, genetic point of view are but a few of the clinical and theoretical constructs that differentiate past from present, therapy from reality, here and now from then and there. These differentiations as they include time perspectives are crucial for our work and our understanding. The linkages of objective measured time with subjective emotional time are important for the patient and for the analyst.
To the psychoanalyst, time is important in so far as its qualities are subjectively significant; properties that may refer to an objective structure in nature are less so. Man is situated in time and his external reality is linked to objective time referents; however, certain temporal qualities such as duration, sequence, continuity, eternity, or progression toward death are subjectively and individually significant, especially as these have direct bearing on memory, self-concept, and differentiation.