Group Analysis as an Adjunct to the Termination Process

Problems of termination, such as resolution of the transference neurosis or transference manifestations in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy have been explored at various times.5,6,9,12,13,15,16,17,18,19 It is generally agreed that there are certain optimal conditions that should exist during the termination phase of psychoanalytic treatment. For example, there should be evidence that the patient views the analyst more realistically, has significantly accepted the impossibility of obtaining infantile gratification from the analyst, is shifting libidinal interests to extra-analytic concerns, or in other words has achieved an irreversible degree of resolution of the transference neurosis.13 To put it more succinctly, during the termination phase transference distortions should recede and the therapeutic alliance should prevail.

However, in analytically oriented psychotherapy and psychoanalysis proper, these optimal conditions are often not achieved. Even after appropriate transference interpretations are offered, after long periods of working through, and even after the treatment has been terminated, transference distortions often persist. The analyst continues not to be viewed realistically in the present, but to be perceived as a displacement of crucial infantile object representations, or as a projection of parts of the self, a distortion based on the patient's narcissism. In a recent panel discussion, “The Fate of the Transference Neurosis after Analysis,”16 Pfeffer offered some conclusions based on follow-up studies. It was found that analyzed patients—patients who were deemed successfully analyzed by themselves and by their analysts—even when being interviewed by a follow-up analyst different from the original analyst, experienced a