Chapter 12 Termination in Process

In this chapter, I focus on a specific manifestation of readiness to end which has come to my attention. It is the patient's spontaneous representation of the process of psychoanalysis, something which indicates a different relationship to time and a greater connectedness to the ‘human world’.

Albert Camus, in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus”, suggests that Sisyphus is condemned because of his passion for life and his hatred of death (Sisyphus had chained death), and for revealing the God's secrets. What is tragic, Camus explains, is that Sisyphus is conscious. In other words he is aware of the hopelessness and futility of his predicament, condemned to the repetitive and hopeless task of pushing a rock up the hill, only to see it roll down again when he gets to the top. However, Camus writes, he can find happiness when he can look at his life and see that his destiny belongs to himself. Camus makes a comparison with Oedipus who starts by following his destiny blindly. His tragedy starts when he knows. But at the end, linked to the world by the hand of a young girl, he says, “Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.” For Oedipus and Sisyphus destiny has become a human affair through their own self-awareness.

This could be an essay on the process of psychoanalysis and its termination: the confrontation with the destructive forces in the guise of the cruel Gods who hate life and punish those who want to live and tell the truth, and the possibility of acceptance consequent on self-awareness and on having an overview, a better contact with reality, and a greater connection to helpful internal and external objects. The power of the Gods is to impede development, so that

progress is forever undone, and hence instil interminability. While the recognition of this state of affairs leads at first to despair, it is also this recognition which allows for freedom and happiness. “There is no sun without shadow and it