You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Termination is arguably one of the most diverse and problematic areas to instruct in psychoanalytic institutes, since few candidates have encountered termination of their cases. Even seasoned analysts recount a small number of terminated analysands as the result of the extended length of analytic treatment. Many classic termination references are from 30 to over 70 years old, and while useful, do not address the complexities of how the analytic dyad has changed in contemporary psychoanalysis, or how little we know about termination because of a paucity of systematic studies, and more particularly, how little we know of the analysand's perspective, which is rarely included in the literature. As a seminar leader who has taught termination to candidates for over 20 years, I have become aware of the discrepancies between how we analysts talk about termination and how the process unfolds between us and our analysands. Often not noted, often not said, and often not written is the actual experience of analysands, their words, their feelings, their thoughts.
In his foreword to this slim volume Gabbard notes, “Few of my cases seemed to follow the termination pattern described in the classic articles on the subject. Moreover, I began to realize that little data has been collected on this subject … the literature was almost based on anecdotes” (p. xiii). Indeed, much current termination literature focuses on analysts’