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The author reviews the literature on the development of the sense of time. He also illustrates how the psychoanalytic setting is ideally suited to promote an understanding of difficulties with time.
Based on the literature, Butler describes two senses of time: time as duration—as it is felt, and time as perspective—a concept. Time as duration is thought to develop first, perhaps even in utero, while time as a concept develops out of the sense of time as duration, perhaps in late infancy. The author describes how a number of investigators believe that time sense develops out of the perception of sequential bodily functions, such as the sleep-wake cycle, sucking at the breast, cathexis by the perceptual system, gratification-frustration, and the self-synchrony of limb movements. The sense of a core self and a self in interaction with others in a temporal medium then develops, along with the sense of time as perspective. The author discusses and illustrates how “patients experience and use time in the timeless but time-honouring analytic setting” (p. 317).