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Good Goodbyes is an interesting and provocative book about the process of termination of psychoanalytic treatments. Among the authors' major points is that a good termination is essential to the success of a psychoanalytic treatment. They add that the significance of termination has been underestimated in the past, and that excellent analytic work can be undermined—sometimes with tragic results—if issues pertaining to termination are not addressed effectively (pp. 2-3). As a corollary point, they also emphasize that a coherent understanding of the overall psychoanalytic process is essential for a good termination, and that the subject of termination needs to be kept in mind and worked on throughout the treatment, from start to finish.
A great strength of this book is the authors' clearly articulated concept of what they regard as the essence of analytic treatment. They demonstrate in unusual detail, and with an unusually clear explication, how their overall concept is manifested at each stage of the treatment and how issues related to termination are worked on throughout the treatment.
On the other hand, I have some concerns about the book. One such concern is that, at times, Novick and Novick make what seem to be simple, declarative statements that obscure important levels of complexity. A particularly salient example occurs at the outset, when the authors indicate that their statements in this book apply equally to both psychoanalysis and psychotherapy (pp. 1-2)—although I agree with their comments about the usefulness of a psychoanalytic perspective for the practice of psychotherapy. I also find apt the analogy of psychoanalysis to a slow-motion camera that a baseball player in a hitting slump can use to pinpoint the problem and correct it. However, the following statements give me pause:
We don't use different theoretical ideas or have different goals for patients whatever the frequency of treatment, [p. 1, italics added]
We know that these ideas can be applied t