The termination of an analysis is a repetition of the experience of being weaned. Before terminating, one should therefore be sure that the first experiences of mourning (separation from the mother) have been sufficiently analyzed to lead one to expect that the patient can successfully pass through the new one about to be imposed by the analyst. Such an analysis would necessarily have considerably reduced the patient's persecutory and depressive anxiety (assumed to arise in the first few months of life). This reduction of anxiety would in turn necessarily have resulted in the achievement of the usual criteria for completion of analysis, i.e., 'established potency and heterosexuality, capacity for love, object relations and work, and certain characteristics of the ego which make for mental stability…'. Because the termination of an analysis is like being weaned, it is helpful to let the patient know the date of termination several months ahead, so that some of the work of mourning can be accomplished during the analysis.