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When the patient began to see me for his second analysis, he was in his late thirties, had been married for ten years, had two young children, and was a successful business executive. His first analysis with another therapist had lasted almost four years, and had ended on a positive note several years previously. At that point he had improved symptomatically and felt he had gained a great deal from the analytic work. On these grounds, as he had done on several occasions previously, he stated his desire to stop the analysis because he felt so much better. This time, however, the analyst, instead of remaining silent, said that he was glad the patient felt that way because he was going to be leaving the area and relocating in another state in about three or four months. The patient's immediate reaction was one of shock and devastation. He felt as if “the floor was falling out” from under him. Although he expressed many of these feelings, some of them went “underground” because he felt, with resignation, that his protestations would be useless. The analyst, on the other hand, considered this to be a fully terminated analysis so no further analysis was recommended. The patient, with a renewed sense of accomplishment, optimism, and independence, agreed.
The patient's main association to the aforementioned ending of the analysis was to a major occurrence of his adolescence. His mother, with whom he had a very close but ambivalent relationship, had been