The end of treatment is a recurrent theme. Initially, theoretical reflection focused on evaluating the aims of treatment: Ferenczi identified the end with the end of “lies”; for Freud it was problematic owing to the limits imposed by the “biological bedrock”. Over the course of time, new criteria appeared (“Nebengewinn”, secondary benefits). Gradually, they concerned the work itself (analysis of the negative transference, resolution of the transference-neurosis, capacity for self-analysis). And finally, resistances to overcoming the crucial question of fixation to the transference object. This fixation constitutes a defence of variable intensity. Any decrease defines a possible zone of termination. It indicates a moment when the patient narcissistically recathects his capacities for sublimation while drawing support from the way the transference object views the unfolding of the patient's return to himself. The cathexis decreases, but above all it becomes qualitatively different.