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The [[concept ]] of "analyzability" appeared late in the [[psychoanalytic ]] [[literature ]] and has two different [[meanings]]: One was the classical designation, following the medical [[model]], concerning "indications and contraindications" of the psychoanalytic [[treatment]]; the [[other ]] referred to the realization of a [[limit ]] to [[interpretation]], that is, the [[recognition ]] that there is an "analyzable" element and an "unanalyzable" element in what the [[psyche ]] produces. It was the abandonment of the strict medical model and the attempt to take into account purely psychoanalytic factors that led to the emphasis, when discussing the [[progress ]] of an [[analysis]], on the concept of analyzability. Preliminary interviews are intended to estimate and, depending on the [[psycho]]-[[pathology ]] of the [[patient ]] and his capacity for insight, orient the [[choice ]] of [[therapy ]] toward a conventional treatment or psychotherapeutic treatment. Some authors, like Elisabeth Zetzel ([[1968]]), have, for example, classified [[hysterical ]] [[patients ]] into four [[categories ]] based on their "analyzability." Other authors, especially when discussing borderline patients, have tried to define precise criteria for prognosis. These include Otto Kernberg, who feels that the ability to [[experience ]] [[guilt ]] is "a [[good ]] prognostic [[sign ]] in the evaluation of the '[[narcissistic ]] [[personality]]'s' analyzability" (1970). The majority of authors, however, although they do not recommend the use of trial treatments as Heinz Kohut did (1971), following [[Freud]], recognize that the only way to judge a patient's receptivity to analysis is through the [[process ]] of analysis itself.

The other [[meaning ]] refers to the limitations of what can be [[analyzed]]. Early in his career Freud put forth the [[idea ]] that not everything was [[subject ]] to interpretation and that we had to acknowledge the unknown element in the [[psychic ]] [[material ]] studied, even if [[clinical ]] and [[theoretical ]] efforts were intended to reduce the impenetrability: "The best-[[interpreted ]] [[dreams ]] often have a passage that has to be [[left ]] in the dark, because we notice in the course of interpretation that a [[knot ]] of [[dream]]-[[thoughts ]] shows itself just there, refusing to be unraveled, but also making no further contribution to the dream-[[content]]. This is the dream's [[navel]], and the [[place ]] beneath which lies the Unknown" (1900a, chap. 7).

To this constraint on the "interpretative [[frenzy]]" (as Sándor Ferenczi described it) of some [[psychoanalysts ]] was later added a [[discussion ]] and evaluation of the limits of the effectiveness of [[psychoanalysis]]. In "[[Analysis Terminable and Interminable]]," aside even from the limits imposed by the [[resistance ]] of the id, the "viscosity of the [[libido]]," or [[negative ]] therapeutic reactions, Freud concluded, "We often have the impression, in the [[case ]] of [[penis ]] [[envy ]] and [[masculine ]] protest, of having opened a passage through the [[psychological ]] strata to 'bedrock,' and to have thereby completed our [[work]]. Yet it cannot be otherwise, since for the psychic, the [[biological ]] indeed plays the [[role ]] of the underlying bedrock" (1937c).

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. SE, 4-5.