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IMAGINE, IF YOU WILL, THE following scenes:
A patient lingers at the end of an hour. I think he is about to reach a point of closure; it seems like it will be any second. But he continues. He is in the middle of something that seems important. With what gestures and words do I interrupt him? I feel that he is very vulnerable. Should I try to explore his obliviousness to the time or his opposition to it? If I wait until the next session I may not find an opportunity to bring it up. In principle, I should be able to say something like: "I'm finding it hard to interrupt you, but we do have to stop now. You know I think the way it goes between us at the ends of sessions may have some meaning that we should explore." But within the situation itself, to say that seems very difficult.
Another patient gets up to leave two or three minutes before the end of her session. There has been no readily identifiable provocation. This is one way that she frequently deals with the separation. Should I just let her go or should I say "You know we still have a few minutes?" or "Oh sit down will you!" or, "Excuse me. Is my time up?" Maybe I should try to offer a more straightforward interpretation, accompanied, perhaps, by an attempt to articulate the feelings her behavior has elicited in me However, if the only interpretation that occurs to me is one that I have offered many times before, should I repeat it?
In another instance, a patient speaks, parenthetically, of a