In this superb paper the following important issues are discussed, with material from the analysis of an adolescent boy as illustration. (1) Adolescents often enter analysis with an overt or covert plan for unilateral termination early in treatment. For analysis truly to begin, the patient must at some point be confronted with the need to relinquish this plan. (2) Criteria for the beginning of the terminal phase are discussed. The start must be a mutual recognition, rather than a decision, and, in the adolescent, is initiated by the patient's ability to experience and maintain in the transference an oedipal level of psychic organization. (3) Because "termination" of childhood relationships with parents is a crucial task of adolescence, the technique of initiation of termination is crucial in adolescent analysis. The topic should be broached and the date set by the adolescent, and the date (remaining unaltered once set) should occur at a time when the analyst is working rather than during a holiday. (4) The terminal phase does not