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end of analysis (fin d'analyse) In 'Analysis Terminable and Inter-
minable', Freud discusses the question of whether it is ever possible to
conclude an analysis, or whether all analyses are necessarily incomplete
(Freud, 1937c). Lacan's answer to this question is that it is indeed possible
to speak of concluding an analysis. Although not all analyses are carried
through to their conclusion, analytic treatment is a logical process which has
an end, and Lacan designates this end-point by the term 'end of analysis'.
Given that many analyses are broken off before the end of analysis is
reached, the question arises as to whether such analyses can be considered
succesful or not. To answer this question it is necessary to distinguish between
the end of analysis and the aim of psychoanalytic treatment. The aim of
psychoanalytic treatment is to lead the analysand to articulate the truth about
his desire. Any analysis, however incomplete, may be regarded as successful
when it achieves this aim. The question of the end of analysis is therefore
something more than whether a course of analytic treatment has or has not
achieved its aim; it is a question of whether or not the treatment has reached its
logical end-point.
Lacan conceives of this end-point in various ways.
l. In the early 1950s, the end of analysis is described as 'the advent of a true
speech and the realisation by the subject of his history' (E, 88) (see SPEECH).
'The subject . . . begins the analysis by speaking about himself without
speaking to you, or by speaking to you without speaking about himself.
When he can speak to you about himself, the analysis will be over' (Ec,
373, n. 1). The end of analysis is also described as coming to terms with
one's own mortality (E, 104-5).
2. In 1960, Lacan describes the end of analysis as a state of anxiety and
abandonment, and compares it to the HELPLESSNEss of the human infant.
3. In 1964 he describes it as the point when the analysand has 'traversed the
radical fantasy' (Sll, 273) (see FANTASY).
4. In the last decade of his teaching, he describes the end of analysis as
'identification with the sinthome', and as 'knowing what to do with the
sinthome' (see SINTHOME).
Common to all these formulations is the idea that the end of analysis
involves a change in the subjective position of the analysand (the analysand's
'subjective destitution'), and a corresponding change in the position of the
analyst (the loss of being [Fr. dÈsÍtre] of the analyst, the fall of the analyst
from the position of the subject-supposed-to-know). At the end of the analysis,
the analyst is reduced to a mere surplus, a pure objet petit a, the cause of the
analysand's desire.
Since Lacan argues that all psychoanalysts should have experienced the
process of analytic treatment from beginning to end, the end of analysis is
also the passage from analysand to analyst. 'The true termination of an
analysis' is therefore no more and no less than that which 'prepares you to
become an analyst' (S7, 303).
In 1967, Lacan introduced the procedure of the PAss as a means of testifying
to the end of one's analysis. By means of this procedure, Lacan hoped to avoid
the dangers of regarding the end of analysis as a quasi-mystical, ineffable
experience. Such a view is antithetical to psychoanalysis, which is all about
putting things into words.
Lacan criticises those psychoanalysts who have seen the end of analysis in
terms of identification with the analyst. In opposition to this view of psycho-
analysis, Lacan states that the 'crossing of the plane of identification is
possible' (Sll, 273). Not only is it possible to go beyond identification, but
it is necessary, for otherwise it is not psychoanalysis but suggestion, which is
the antithesis of psychoanalysis; 'the fundamental mainspring of the analytic
operation is the maintenance of the distance between the I - identification -
and the a' (S11, 273).
Lacan also rejects the idea that the end of analysis involves the 'liquidation'
of the transference (see S11, 267). The idea that the transference can be
'liquidated' is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the transference,
according to which the transference is viewed as a kind of illusion which can
be transcended. Such a view is erroneous because it entirely overlooks the
symbolic nature of the transference; transference is part of the essential
structure of speech. Although analytic treatment involves the resolution of
the particular transference relationship established with the analyst, transfer-
ence itself still subsists after the end of analysis.
Other misconceptions of the end of analysis which Lacan rejects are:
'strengthening the ego', 'adaptation to reality' and 'happiness'. The end of
analysis is not the disappearance of the symptom, nor the cure of an underlying
disease (e.g. neurosis), since analysis is not essentially a therapeutic process
but a search for truth, and the truth is not always beneficial (Sl7, 122).
== def ==
Lacan conceives of this end-point in various ways.
