PROLOGUE

The last time that the psychoanalytic issue of “termination” served as a focus of study for a Psychoanalytic Inquiry issue was in 1982. A number of questions were addressed: (1) criteria for termination; (2) the process of termination; and (3) the subjective response to termination of analysand and analyst on those occasions when there is a sense of success as well as at those times when there is a sense of premature interruption.

Over the 25 years following this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, we have witnessed and participated in the ongoing emergence of two psychoanalytic paradigm shifts: the first, objectivisim to constructivism and the second, intrapsychic to relational field theory. During the same period of time psychoanalysis has been in the process of integrating developments in infant and attachment research, cognitive psychology, and neuroscientific findings that have fundamentally altered our conceptualizations of psychological development, pathogenesis, transference, and therapeutic action.

We, thus, find it timely to revisit and to investigate the impact of these revolutionary changes in psychoanalytic thinking on the concept of termination and the clinical practice of analytic endings. Questions we wish to address include: (1) How do these paradigm changes in psychoanalysis affect our view of termination? (2) Does or should analysis end? (3) How does analysis end and how does it continue? (4) How do analysts and analysands negotiate endings and continuations? And (5) What is the experience like for each of the two participants, analysand and analyst? In keeping with our purpose and the tradition of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, we have invited a group of prominent authors who offer a range of psychoanalytic perspectives on our topic.

Subsequent to the studies of Stephen Firestein (1978) and Judith Viorst (1982), examining the psychological meanings of termination for psychoanalysts, Heather Craige (2002) and Lora Tessman (2003) have published two