The satisfaction of functioning at the top of one's experience and respect from colleagues and patients are healthy reasons for postponing retirement from private practice, whereas unconscious identification with one's grandiose self or the idealization of one's professional superego or ego ideal, and denial of deterioration, illness and death disturb a realistic appraisal of one's functioning. Moreover, an anxiously preoccupied attachment pattern interferes with a timely farewell to patients. Retirement requires working through these unconscious motives in a process of mourning, which is illustrated by a vignette of the author's own experience.

Key words: countertransference, denial of deterioration, grandiose self, identity, illness and death, mourning, narcissism, preoccupied attachment, professional superego and ego-ideal, retirement