The notions of process and transformation can be found throughout Freud's thought. After a detailed review of their etymology, the author highlights and explains the difficulty of translating these two words from the German language, which has led to some confusion between the analytical process and the psychic process. She goes on to describe the dual progressive and retrogressive dynamic of the analytic process, which can either foster the emergence of psychic transformations through the work of distortion or, on the contrary, fail in the face of traumatic configurations that can lead to interminable analyses. While the notions of process and transformation are still a matter of debate among psychoanalysts today, the analytic method promotes the construction of the psychic operations involved in processuality. The author thus suggests that the dynamic of construction-reconstruction covers, in an asymmetrical way, an essential function of the analytical work for both the analyst and the analysand.