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Analytic stalemate is a common experience in analytic practice. Some of the salient characteristics of analytic stalemates are well described in the dynamic relationship between Freud and the Wolf Man when the Wolf Man became preoccupied with his symptoms and stopped producing what Freud (1918) considered to be meaningful associations. In response, Freud set a time limit for the termination of the analysis; the Wolf Man soon realized that he was in earnest, and once more began to produce clinical material that allowed Freud to resume the analysis. Twenty years later, however, Freud (1937) returned to the Wolf Man as he reviewed portions of his analytic experiences, and was skeptical of using a termination date as a standard technique for overcoming analytic stalemate. He resorted to an ultimatum when he felt hopeless and emotionally exhausted, convinced that the patient had paralyzed the analytic process and that no interpretive effort on his part would have remobilized it.
Freud did not have the benefit of presenting his analytic stalemate to a consultant or supervisor. Had he done so, the analytic supervisory process, tacitly or explicitly, probably would have brought out not only the patient's contributions to the stalemate, but also how Freud's overt interventions and unconscious collusion interacted with the