In the final stages of a successful psychoanalytic treatment, the analysand wished to reach a higher level of improvement than he had already done, in order to be able to function very capably when he finally separated from his analyst. But his persecutory superego (internal persecutory objects) transferentially projected on to his analyst opposed this positive development, and only permitted it to a limited extent. The analysand submitted to his superego and developed intense, unconscious, phobic reactions against the possibilities of further progress towards well-being. The analysand intensified his mourning reactions to the future loss of his analyst as a defence to mask these unconscious phobic reactions.

The analysand's phobic reactions to the possibility of further improvement caused him to try to debase his own analyst. In this way he tried to reassure himself that his analyst would not be able to make him any better. These attempts at debasement were also, and to a greater degree, a projection by the analysand on to his analyst of his own self-debasement.