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Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.—Shakespear
The problem of long analyses is, properly and understandably, of special concern to anyone about to begin treatment. Clinical analysis seems mysterious and uncertain to someone embarking on a personal analytic venture, and the danger of the mystery is compounded by the consulting analyst's inability to state the likely length of the analytic voyage. Stories abound, horror stories often apocryphal, of analyses extending into endless time. Beyond the anticipation of personal unknowns, which demands courage of any new analysand, the existence of analyses that last very many years is of substantial concern not only to prospective patients but to analysts themselves.
Friedman (1994) organized his incisive historical overview of psychoanalysis by defining analysis in terms of the analyst's attitudes to the patient and to the analytic task. This vantage proved to be especially fruitful because it took into account both the analyst's practice and theory, including an analyst's unconscious positions as well as conscious principles. Concern with the dyadic context of clinical work makes it valuable to follow that model and question clinical analyses lasting unusually long durations of time from a similar organizing vantage point of the analyst's attitude to the problem.
First, however, we must address the biases and self-interests we bring to the table. Long analyses are of concern to us on many levels, touching questions as broad as our ideals and as specific as our incomes, even as crucial as the very survival of our profession. Therefore, before we narrow our focus down to matters