The psychoanalytic process: a schematic model.

Clinical analysis can be usefully conceptualized as a process, with a locus, impetus, direction, and sequential steps. The schematic model proposed of such a process places the locus within the patient's mind; derives the impetus from the assimilative tendencies of the psychic apparatus; defines the direction from neurotic mechanisms to new consolidations; and suggests a sequence of four steps. The four steps are the resistance of character, the resistance of the transference consolidation, the resistance of the revived past, and the post-analytic consolidation. A variety of advantages of a careful review of such features are described. Some of the limitations of the model are offered as well.