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The author's reflections on interruption are initially guided by the book, La Cérémonie des adieux, in which De Beauvoir recalls Sartre's last days, and by the voluminous essay by De Martino describing primitive man's mourning rites. Gesuè points out that the ritual behavior discussed by De Martino reflects the normal course of mourning described by Freud. When there is no "cérémonie des adieux," as happens in the case of analyses that are interrupted violently or prematurely, the analyst's disorientation at being left alone, and his or her feeling of potential irreparableness, can open the way to pathological mourning.
The author examines the cases of two patients who interrupted their analyses. Basing her discussion on the psychoanalytic literature on the subject, she tries to identify the cause of these interruptions and suggests they were due to an impasse which arose at a certain moment and could not be worked through. This prompted both analyst and patient to start feeling, "it would be better for both of us if we split." So, when it no longer seems possible for the course of an analysis to continue, when