Based on the culture theoretical work of Sigmund Freud “Civilization and its discontents” (1930), an attempt is made to clarify current social and cultural challenges and contradictions, which are not least closely linked to the factor of “time”, “accelerated time” and the psychoanalytic talk of the “timelessness of the unconscious”. The resulting seemingly insoluble social, economic and individual conflicts show immediate and profound consequences for the duration and frequency of today’s psychoanalytic treatments. The psychoanalytic method itself becomes a culturally critical procedure and stands in conflict between adaptation or submission as well as defying or resistance; however, it also becomes a trigger for discomfort itself, because its complexity and duration seem to overwhelm the individual. Two clinical examples demonstrate the associated inner emotional conflicts against the background of our current social challenges.
