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This small book on psychoanalytic terminations is utterly elegant, informative, well written, and wise. The book was based on a study by the author of 82 analysands she interviewed by telephone who shared the experience of termination from psychoanalysis over the last 40 years. From these phone interviews the author gleans a great deal of information, not only about terminating from a psychoanalysis but as well what that psychoanalysis and the psychoanalyst conducting the treatment represented to the individual. The subjects of the study were 82 prior analysands, many of them from training analyses, others from non-training analyses. A majority of the subjects were clinicians, including the majority who were in a training psychoanalysis, and others who availed themselves of analysis but were not in training. About a quarter of the group were not clinicians.
What is so impressive in this small study was the depth and breadth of feelings that the author elicited, and the desire of the subjects to confide in her and report their affective responses. My sense is that Kantrowitz is a very empathic and intent listener and that this in part accounted for the responsiveness of the subjects she encountered. And encountered is a good word for what happened between her and the subjects. One had the feeling that many, or most, of the subjects felt something very real and important was happening to them in the interviews, that what was happening mattered. Reading her reports of the interviews one is impressed with findings that come from a very senior, sensitive clinician, one who is open, unbiased, welcomes input, and will accept that input for what it was on an individual basis. Many of the subjects reported a positive benefit from having been able to talk to and open up to Kantrowitz, and reading this book, I can understand that.
Several conclusions that come from the interviews were noteworthy and surprising, such as many of the subjects terminating with a sense of joy and alm