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In this article, I would like to consider reactions to the death of an analyst from the standpoints of, first, the attitudes of older psychoanalysts toward discussing with their patients the possibility of their own death and, second, the reactions of patients who were candidates in training analysis toward the death of their analyst.
The need to explain interest in this particular topic is probably reflective of the general silence surrounding the issue, both in the psychoanalytic literature and in the conversations of colleagues.
My own analyst was obliged to relocate to another country during the course of a classical Freudian analysis, leaving a residue of considerable, rather deep transference issues still unresolved. During the next analysis, which was part of my analytic training, nine deaths occurred in my immediate family. As noted by Silver (1982), analysts, in general, have an inordinately long training period and, therefore, the chance of various illnesses and deaths occurring even early on in one's career is not statistically remote. Starting a profession after the age of 40 meant that life-cycle concerns were even more prominent for me than they might have been for a younger analyst. Finally, that doctors have difficulties dealing with disease and death (Feifel, 1959) has been well documented. In my case, the usual defense of denial was enhanced by the conversion during my childhood of a major portion of my family to Christian Science.