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This study draws on the author’s recollection of socio-psychoanalytic interventions which he had planned to take part in or which he has actually carried out over the last twenty years or so, and identifies two types of causes: first, those on the basis of which the intervention did not take place (intervention not permitted) and, secondly, those that contributed to its interruption (intervention interrupted). While accepting that psycho-sociological interventions may not get off the ground or may not be pursued, we put forward a certain number of explanatory hypotheses for this phenomenon. Here are some of them. For example, our contention is that the perfect, successful, finished intervention does not exist; that a successful (or easy) intervention is not always the one that is the most productive from the standpoint of psycho-sociological knowledge (conversely, a difficult or unsuccessful intervention is often instructive); that hiccups and unforeseen circumstances partake of its definition; that contexts have an effect on the intervention in a way that is often decisive, and that they are likely to modify its course; and, finally, that what is important is not so much what we are capable of dissimulating in our practices as what we hide without realizing it. So, while we know, for instance, that an intervention which the intervening party is not in favor of has little chance of succeeding or of being pursued, who will take the trouble to say so or even to admit it to him or herself? This text aims to contribute, for a change, to defending an incomplete conception of intervention that accords a bit more value to what there is of loss in it.