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Gilda de Simone, a member of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society, has collected her thoughts about the theory and technique of ending analysis into a well-organized, readable, and thoughtful format.
De Simone's attempts to answer the question of “terminability” of analysis stimulated questions about timing, theoretical and clinical models, techniques, the problem of difficult conclusions, and the huge variety of themes connected with the postanalytic phase. She begins by observing that the developmental level reached at the conclusion of analysis cannot be viewed separately from that at the beginning, and it is not appropriate to expect the same development in all cases. One criterion for ending analysis that she discusses is the “point of irreversibility,” where a level of integration will be maintained after the conclusion of the analysis.
De Simone uses a relational model—the analytic couple at work and a focus on contact and separation. De Simone does not view the process created by the analytic situation as isomorphic with events as the analysand grew up, but as restarting growth that had stopped. The analytic process may not be natural, but we can consider that the potential for progress that it reestablishes is natural. In every analysis there are moments when the element of “separation” emerges and is worked through. Separation means both separation (from a real object)