Stations Along the Via Dolorosa Towards Good-Enough Endings

This article focuses on the prevailing aspiration to reach a “good-enough ending” in analysis, a concept that is partly realistic and partly illusional. I discuss some of the obstacles that interfere with achieving this yearned for goal, and lead to endings that are far from the misleading illusion of the good-enough termination, that many of us believe we have achieved and are many more than it is commonly reported. I describe characteristics, obstacles, blockages, dreads within the analysand, within the analyst and in the space in between, which lead to endings which are far from good enough, by any criteria we might choose. These obstacles include the failure to distinguish between “real” versus “similar to”; emotional excess; emptying out of internal resources and toxemia of therapy/analysis; a fascination with certain levels of mind versus a neglect of others; osmotic pressure for oneness and the terror of perfection; and malignant nostalgia. Reflecting on such complex facets in the analytic process is relevant not only for a deeper understanding of illusions that we and our analysands hold with regard to endings, but also, implicitly, to the understanding of illusions, beliefs, and myths we and our patients have regarding beginnings.