Preoccupations concerning the outcome of an analysis at its term, which are ideally latent in every analyst, regularly lead to the introduction of prescriptions concerning the duration and the end which attempt to respond to compulsions of repetition and reduction. Two wishes expressing the drive regressivity leading to the extinction of the death drives and life drives can be recognized here: the wish to put an end to the analysis and the quest for the infinite. The reference to an ideal theoretical mental functioning, taking into account these wishes linked to attractions beyond the pleasure principle, introduces qualitative criteria which attest to the importance of the timelessness indispensable to the two stages of the operation of après-coup. This operation is established under the aegis of the imperative of renunciation, the first function of which is to oppose drive extinction. The need of children to say no bears witness to the ambivalence towards this foundational act of restraint. This conflict of renunciation within the mind as a whole will be borne by the future superego.