How Long is a Therapy Session?
Lacanian Sessions Don’t Run by the Clock
Most of us grew up with the pop-culture image of therapy as a fifty-minute hour: the couch, the analyst’s gentle nod, and a polite buzzer when time is up. Lacanian analysis – how most of us practise at the Other clinic – turns that ritual on its head. The majority of our analysts practice variable length sessions. Rather than letting minutes dictate meaning, we listen very carefully to the logic of the session. The aim isn’t to ration time; it’s to seize the pulse of desire and let it unfold long after you’ve left the room.
Where the Idea Comes From
Jacques Lacan noticed that a rigid timetable invites speaker and listener alike to drift. When the patient feels obliged to “fill the hour,” and the analyst passively waits for something memorable, language can settle into what Lacan called empty speech – words that circle without cutting into anything vital.
To counter this, Lacan developed the practice of scansion. Think of a poem: every line break surprises the ear and changes the rhythm. In analysis, the cut is that line break. The analyst listens for a moment when the chain of words exposes a contradiction, a slip, or a glimpse of desire. Ending the session right there stamps the moment in memory and lets the meaning ripple outside the room.
What Shorter Sessions Actually Do
Myth: “I’m paying for an hour—why am I leaving after 30 minutes?”
Reality: You’re paying for movement and an effect, not for minutes. One precise cut often advances the work much further than forty extra minutes of talking could.
Myth: “Short sessions feel abrupt and unkind.”
Reality: The brevity is intentional but not careless. The analyst ends where your own speech reveals something important – protecting that discovery from being smoothed over.
Myth: “Won’t I miss the chance to talk things through?”
Reality: The cut keeps the thought alive between sessions, where real change happens. Many people dream, write, or notice new links in daily life precisely because the session stopped “too soon.”
The Unconscious Loves a Deadline
Psychologists studying creativity find that constraints – time limits, word counts, rhythmic bars – spark sharper ideas than a blank canvas. The unconscious works the same way. When there’s no guarantee of extra time, what matters most tends to surface more quickly and the work moves at a much greater pace.
Punctuation, Not Termination
Ending at a powerful moment is called punctuation. It’s the analyst’s ethical act: marking where your words reveal a a crucial point, then refusing to dull it with further chatter. Think of being interrupted mid-sentence by a brilliant insight – you might replay that line for hours. The session cut works the same way, but with the weight of your unconscious behind it.
Living With the After-Echo
Many newcomers to therapy can worry they’ll leave a session “unfinished.” Yet much of psychoanalytic work occurs between sessions: dreams, slips of the tongue, peculiar choices you notice during the week. The leftover tension is a feature, not a flaw – it keeps the process humming outside the room. By the time you return, something fresh usually insists on being said.
A Word on Fees
People often equate time with money, so it’s natural to ask if shorter sessions should cost less. Lacan would answer that you’re paying for the analyst’s act, clinical acumen, and the overall trajectory – not a metered clock. A well-timed cut can save months of redundant talk, making the treatment more economical than the alternative.
Closing Thought
Variable-length sessions aren’t a quirky scheduling hack; they’re a structural intervention aimed at the unconscious itself. By refusing to let the clock dictate the rhythm, Lacanian analysis restores something: a clinical practice alive to surprise, desire, and the sudden twist of meaning. If a session feels short, consider that the unconscious may already have spoken – and now it’s your task to listen for the echo.
More on Appointments
Recommended Reading:
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Jacques Lacan – The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power.
- Fink, B. A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis – Chapters 2-3
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