SUMMARY

This article is centred upon the particularities of the ending of the analyses of three narcissistic patients. Their sudden decision to interrupt is attribueted to a double imperative : refusal to give up an ideal associated with the narcissistic economy and the difficulty of showing and living in the analytic relationship the progress and the changes due to the analysis. These analysands avoid the experience of mourning and its elaboration in anticipation, although we cannot state definitely that a certain amount of mourning has not been accomplished. The analyst has observed in the countertranference a recognition of a need for autonomy in these patients, their departure not being felt only as a flight. This experience induced a countertransferential attitude related to the intimate conviction that by their initiative, these analysands translated, among other determining factors, the desire to be recognised in the most primitive parts of themselves, as original subjects capable of autonomy.