Michel VINCENT

Socit Psychanalytique de Paris

Termination of Psychoanalysis
Introduction
Thinking to this presentation while I was listening to Giampaolo Kluzer presenting a
paper about violence in psychoanalysis (2008), I was struck by his reference to Pierra
Aulagniers Violence of interpretation (1975), which is a free translation for the title of an
important book emphasizing the importance of early mother-baby relationship to decide
about the psychoanalytic process after the early interpretative work done by the mother while
nursing the infans with no verbal communication yet. The analytic setting here is conceive of
as oscillating between the working through of the pathogenic violence and the unescapable
violence or force involved in psycho-analytic interpretation. Earlier, dealing with Time and
Psychoanalysis Kluzer (2002) states The lengh and development of an analysis is
conditioned both, by reality factors that contribute - somehow - to give to analysis limits and
characteristics of terminability, and by fantasy factors that go in the opposite direction, that
is towards absence of limits and towards interminability. It appears clearly -for example- in
the presentation by Javier Garcia, from Uruguay (2007) about dreams which makes it possible
for the analyst to see the intensity of the transferential reactualization, while at the same
time, their sequence shows us the movements the analysis permitted. Edward Glover (1955)
in his book The Technique of Psycho-Analyses describes an opening phase and a terminal
phase with -in between- developments on defence and resistance, counter-resistance and
counter- transference leading to the transference neurosis. Its description are supported by
many clinical vignette. Opposite to physician Glover makes it clear that psycho-analysts
cannot allow themselves to be satisfied with the alleviation of symptoms. He also reminds us
of the main characteristics of the terminal phase are regression, increase in transferencephantasy and fixation, and an exacerbation of the symptom-picture, either in new directions
or along the already established lines, all of which lead to an increasing emphasis on
secondary gain. ... Secondary gain is also a second line of defence during analysis. Having
breached the first line, we are in a suitable position to tackle this more superficial defence In
the second part Glover considers the clinical standards other than signs of symptomatic
improvement to indicate that the time is ripe for termination. Dreams as I have already
mention about Javier Garcia presentation to 14th PIEEs summer school are among them. Also

screen memories and traumatic events acting as screens for earlier experiences and phantasies
(p:159). Disorders of psycho-sexual activity, or of working capacity or of social adaptation,
even apparently trivial indications are considered (p :161). Despite its basic approach Glover
still deserve to be praised for his wisdom and clinical experience with a variety of patients.
But any analyst is certainly most indebted to S. Freud and his early followers. Here I have in
mind Sandor Ferenczi and his paper : The Problems of the termination of the analysis (1927)
and Freuds Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937c).

Two historical papers

Ferenczy wrote his paper on termination on the occasion of the 10th International
Psycho-Analytical Congrs at Insbruck at the onset of september 1927. That was after he had
concern himself so much with the active method aiming at shortening the duration of psychoanalytic treatment. Here he takes the opposite stance : The completion of an analysis is
possible only if, so to speak, unlimited time is at ones disposal(p : 82). He also made clear a
very important historical point I can admit no difference between a therapeutic and a training
analysis (p:84). Ferenczi emphasized the importance of analytic working through which is a
topic close to construction in analysis. Working through, or the effort that we apply to it, into
dynamic relation with the repression and the resistance, that is to say with a purely
quantitative factor. ... Further repetition of the same transference and resistance material,
which has perhaps been gone through a countless number of time already, sometimes leads
unexpectedly to an important advance which we can explain only as the succesful effect of the
factor of working through ... after long working through, access to new memory material is
gained which may herald the end of analysis(p : 82-83). He suggests a vivid definition of the
goal of psychoanalysis Every male patient must attain a feeling of equality in relation with
the physician as a sign that he has overcome his fear of castration ; every female patient, if her
neurosis is to be regarded as fully disposed of, must have got rid of her masculinity complex
and must emotionally accept without a trace of resentment the implication of her female role
(p : 84). He also states The proper ending of an analysis is when neither the physician nor the
patient puts an end to it, but when it dies of exhaustion (p : 85). But he also appear convinced
that calling on all our patients for full and complete free association from the outset
represents an ideal which, so to speak, can be fulfilled only after the analysis has ended (p :
79).

Freuds Analysis terminable and interminable (1937c). It precedes Construction in

analysis (1937d). Our actual reading receive a very stimulating support from the Editors note
in the Standard Edition (vol XXIII) and by the many contributions in the IPA Monograh
edited by Joseph Sandler. The paper is made of eight part.
The first two part are about our concern with interminability which may lead to setting a limit
for termination, and to a careful study of the factors which may make analysis interminable.
It reminds us that psycho-analytic therapy is a time-consuming business. Hence from the very
first, attempts have been made to shorten the duration of psychoanalyses. For example Otto
Rank, following his book, The trauma of birth, supposed that the true source of neurosis was
the act of birth. He hoped that if this primal trauma were dealt with by a subsequent analysis,
the whole neurosis would be got rid of. To speed up an analytic treatment Freud used the
fixing of a time limit for analysis, which he called an heroic measure. This had been the
case with the wolf-man, Sergue Pankejeff. The only verdict about the value of this device is
that it is effective provided that one hits the right time for it. But it cannot guarantee to
accomplish the task completely. The wolf-mans resistance shrank up and Freud says (p : 217)
that in the last months of his treatment he was able to reproduce all the memories and to
discover all the connections which seemed necessary for understanding his early neurosis and
mastering his present one. When Freud published the case after WWI, a few years after he
had completed it , he added a foot-note with the statement that since then the patient has felt
normal and has behaved unexceptionably, in spite of the war having robbed him of his home,
his possessions, and all his family relationships. But here, in Analysis Terminable and
Interminable Freud adds certain reservation have become necessary . The patient good state
of health has been interrupted by attacks of illness which recquired Ruth Mack Brunswick
treatment for a short course on each occasion. Freud emphasize that some of these attacks
were still concerned with residual portions of the transference. Freud came to conclude that
the history of the patients recovery was scarcely less interesting than that of his illness.
The end of analysis can mean different things. From a practical point of view , it
means that the patient and the analyst have ceased to meet each other for the analytic session.
Freud adds This happens when two conditions have been approximately fullfilled : first that
the patient shall no longer be suffering from his symptoms and shall have overcome his
anxieties and his inhibitions ; and secondly, that the analyst shall judge that so much repressed
material has been made conscious, so much that was unintelligible has been exlplained, and
so much internal resistance conquered, that there is no need to fear a repetition of the

pathological processes concerned. This may not be reached and Freud suggests to better
speak of an incomplete analysis, rather than an unfinished one.
The other meaning of the end of analysis is that the analyst has had such a far-reaching
influence on the patient that no further change could be expected to take place in him if his
analysis were continued. A constitutional strength of instincts and an unfavorable alteration of
the ego acquired in its defensive struggle in the sense of its being dislocated and restricted are
the factors which are prejudicial to the effectiveness of analysis and which may make its
duration interminable. Two exemple are given. One is obviously about Ferenczi who had
reproached Freud for having failed to give him a complete analysis. Ferenczi claimed that
the analyst ought to have known and to have taken into account the fact that a transferencerelation can never be purely positive ; he should have given his attention to the possibilities of
a negative transference. Freuds point is important : at the time of analysis, there was no sign
of a negative transference, adding that it was still doubtful whether he would have had the
power to activate a complex by pointing it out, so long as it was not currently active in the
patient himself at the time. The second case is about an unmaried woman illustrating that even
a successful analytic treatment does not prevent the patient from falling ill later when a
tumour which made a complete hysterectomy advisable. It is under discussion whether the
second episode is from another neurosis, or, of a neurosis derived from the same instinctual
root recurence of the same old trouble. Freud was inclined to think that, were it not for the
new trauma, there would have been no fresh outbreak of neurosis. Freuds conclusion
become clear : if we wish to fulfil the more exacting demands upon analytic therapy, our
road will not lead us to, or by way of, a shortening of its duration.

Part III. Three factors which are decisive for the success or failure of analytic treatment are
assessed: the influence of traumas, the constitutional strenght of the instincts, and the
alterations of the ego. The constitutional factor is of decisive importance from the very
beginning ; however, a reinforcement of instinct coming later in life might produce the same
effects. Twice in the course of individual development certain instincts are considerably
reinforced : et puberty and, in women, at the menopause. We are not the least surprised if a
person who was not neurotic before becomes so at these times. Freud point is an economic
one, to emphasize the importance of the economic line as well as the dynamic and the
topographical ones. These three lines are fundamental to most analyst, at least in France and
sum up as the metapsychological approach to mental functionning. When that persons
instincts were not so strong, he succeeded in taming them ; but when they are reinforced he
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can no longer do so ... The same effect may be brought about in an irregular fashion by
accidental causes at any other period of life. The claim of analysis is that all repression take
place in early chilhood, depending entirely on the relative strenght of the forces involved,
unable to hold against an increase in the strenght of the instincts. Analysis however, enables
the ego, which has attained greater maturity and strenght, to undertake a revision of these old
repressions; a few are demolished, while others are recognized but constructed afresh out of
more solid material. Analysis does not always succeed in ensuring to a sufficient degree the
foundations on which a control of instincts is based. The cause of such a partial failure is
easily discovered. In the past, the quantitative factor of instinctual strenght opposed the egos
defensive efforts ; for that reason we called in the work of analysis to help ; and now the
same factor sets a limit to the efficacy of the new effort. If the strenght of the instinct is
excessive, the mature ego, supported by analysis, fails in its task, just as the helpless ego
failed formely.

Part IV.Two further questions are considered : wether we can protect a patient from future
conflict while we are treating one instinctual conflict, and whether it is feasible and expedient,
for prophylactic purposes, to stir up a conflict which is not at the time manifest. What limits
are set to the efficacy of analytic treatment. The analytic experience is that we cannot
influence it even by analysis if an instinctual conflict is not currently an active one, that is not
manifesting itself. It is not in the power of the analyst to awaken them. The work of analysis
proceeds best if the patients pathogenic experiences belong to the past, so that his ego can
stand at a distance from them. This concept of distance has been emphasized in the work of
Maurive Bouvet (1967), a french analyst very much concern with object relation. In analytic
prophylaxis against instinctual conflict the only method which come into consideration are :
(1) the artificial production of new conflicts in the transference (conflicts which lack the
character of reality), and (2) the arousing of such conflicts in the patients imagination by
talking to him about them and making him familiar with their possibility. Freud made it clear
that patient cannot themselves bring all their conflicts into the transference ; nor is the analyst
able to call out all their possible instinctual conflicts from the transference situation. Any
active hostile intervention on the part of the analyst would only result in depriving the analytic
work from the patients taking a share in the joint analytic work. Otherwise, by telling the
patient about the possibilities of other instinctual conflict we arouse his expectation that such
conflicts may occur in him. What we hope is that this information and this warning will have
the effect of activating in him one of the conflicts in a modest degree and yet sufficiently for
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treament. The expected result does not come about ; all we have done is increased his
nowledge but altered nothing else in him. An analogous experience in which children are
given sexual enlighten ment leads to conclude that children are not even in so great hurry to
sacrifice for his new knowledge his infantile earlier sexual theories about the part played by
the stork, the nature of sexual intercourse and the way babies are made.

Part V. Alterations of the ego affect prognosis out of the resistance developed against the
analytic process . The factors which are decisive for the success of the therapeutic efforts are
the influence of traumatic aetiology, the relative strength of the instincts which have to be
controlled, and the alteration of the ego. The later is described according to the egos
remoteness from normality and from psychosis, distances which will provide a provisional
measure of what Freud have termed an alteration of the ego. What are the source of such
alteration? Are they congenital or acquired ? The later being easier to treat. The analytic
situation consits in our allying ourselves with the ego of the person under treatment, in order
to subdue portions of his id which are uncontrolled. The ego has to try to fulfill its task of
mediating between its id and the external world in the service of the pleasure principle, and to
protect the id from the dangers of the external world. Under the influence of education the ego
grows accustomed to removing the scene of the fight from outside to within and to mastering
the internal danger of before it has become an external one. During this fight on two fronts,
the ego makes use of various procedures for fulfilling its task, which is to avoid danger,
anxiety and unpleasure. These procedure are called mechanism of defense. Here Freud refers
to the work by Anna Freud describing the multiplicity and many-sided significance of these
defensive mechanisms. The mechanism of defence serve the purpose of keeping off dangers.
But they may become dangers themselves, which is the case when it happens that the ego has
paid too high a price for the service they render it. Each person uses no more than a selection
of mechanism of defence. They become regular modes of reaction of his character, which are
repeated throughout his life whenever a situation occurs that is similar to the original one.
Thus the adults ego, with its increased strength, continues to defend itself against dangers
which no longer exist in reality. Thus the ego treats recovery as a new danger. The therapeutic
effect depends on the uncovering of what is hidden in the id. The effect brought about in the
ego by the defense mechanism can rightly be described as an alteration of the ego if by that
we understand a deviation from the normal ego which would guarantee unshakable loyalty to
the work of analysis. The outcome of an analytic treatment depends essentially on the strength
and on the depth of these resistances that bring about an alteration of the ego.
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Part VI. Constitutional variables in ego, libido and free agressiveness are involved in the
resistances we meet. Each ego is endowed with individual dispositions and trends. The
properties of the ego which we meet with in the form of resistances can be determined by
heredity or can be acquired in defensive struggles of the earliest years. When Freud speak of
archaic heritage it is usually only when thinking of the id and it seems to be assumed that at
the begining of the individuals life no ego is as yet in existence. But it is credible to Freud
that, even before the ego has come into existence, the lines of development, trends and
reactions which it will later exibit are already laid down for it. There are various kinds of
resistance. There are people to whom is attributed a special adhesiveness of the libido ( In
such patient the processes which are expected from the treatment are so much slower than in
other people because, apparently, they cannot make up their mind to detach libidinal cathexe
from one object and displace them on to another). Another group of patient is made with an
opposite type of person in whom the libido seems particularly mobile. The difference between
the two group could be made brief by the saying Soon got, soon gone. Freud discuss also
the part of psychical inertia as it is met in old peolple but also in still young patient whom we
might identify nowaday as borderline. In yet another group of cases the distinguishing
characteristics of the ego, which are to be held responsible as sources of resistance against
analytic treatment and as impediment to the therapeutic success, may spring from different
and deeper roots. Here we are deeling with the ultimate thing which psychological research
can learn about : the behavior of the two primal instincts, their distribution, mingling, and
defusion. In studying the phenomena which testify to the activity of the destructive instinct,
we are not confined to observation on pathological material. One aspect of these resistance is
the sense of guilt and need for punishment which has been localized in the egos relation to its
superego. But considering the total picture, including masochism, the negative therapeutic
reaction, and the sense of guilt displayed by so many neurotics leads to think that the pleasure
principle should not be considered as the exclusive principle governing mental processes. We
are invited to consider also an instinct of agression or destruction according to its aims, and
which has been traced back to the original death instinct of the living matter. Freud discuss a
few example about it. There have always been, as there still are, people who can take as their
sexual objects members of their own sex as well as of the opposite one, without the one trend
interfering with the other. This people are called bisexuals, which differs from the finding that
every human being is bisexual in this sense that his libido is distributed, either in a manifest or

a latent fashion, over objects of both sexes. The difference is that in the later the two trends
are in a state of irreconciliable conflict.
Empedocles from Agrigentum explained the variety of things by the mixture of the four
elements, earth, air, fire and water ; helding that all nature was animate, with transmigration
of the souls. This is a cosmic phantasy, but very similar to the psychoanalytic theory which
claims for biological validity. The Greek philosopher taught that two principle governed
events in the life of the universe and in the life of the mind : love and strife. The two
principles are both in name and function, the same as the two primal instincts acnowledged by
psychoanalysis Eros and destructiveness : the first endeavors to combine what exists into ever
greater unities, while the second endeavors to dissolve those combinations and to destroy the
structures to which they have given rise.

Part VII- The analysts individuality as a factors in the prognosis. Freud reminds us of Sandor
Ferenczis paper which he found instructive on the problemn of terminating analisis. Freud
notes that it ends with a conforting assurance that analysis is not an endless process, but one
which can be brought to a natural end with sufficient skill and patience on the analyst part.
Ferenczi makes the further important point that success depends largely on the analysts
having learnt sufficiently from his own errors and mistakes and having got the better of the
weak point of his personnality. It cannot be disputed that analyst in their own personalities
have not invariably come up to the standard of psychic normality to which they wish to
educate their patients. Oponents of analysis often point to this fact with scorn and use it as an
argument to show the uselesness of analytic exertions. The special condition of analytic work
do actually cause the analyst own defects to interfere with his making a correct assessment of
the state of things in his patient and reacting to them in a useful way. Finally, Said Freud,
we must not forget that the analytic relationship is based on a love of truth to conclude that
analysis is the third impossible profession after education and government1. The termination
of an analysis is a practical matter. Every experienced analyst will be able to recall a number
of cases in which he has bidden his patient a permanent farewell. The purpose of the analysis
is to secure the best possible psychological conditions for the function of the ego ; with that it
has discharged its task.

SE XXIII, p : 248

Part VIII Bisexuality is the strongest resistance to psychoanalysis. Both in therapeutic

and in character analysis, two themes come into prominence and give the analyst an unusual
amount of trouble. The two themes are an envy for the penis, a positive striving to pocess a
male genital in the female and, in the male, a struggle against his passve or feminine attitude
to another male. What is common to the two themes was singled out at an early date by
psychoanalytic nomenclature as an attitude towards the castration complex. In both cases, it is
the attitude to the opposite sex which has succumbed to repression. The paramount
importance of these two themes did not escape Ferenczis notice. In the paper read by him in
1927, he made a requirement that in every successful analysis this two complexes must be
mastered. At no other point in ones analytic work does one suffer more from an oppressive
feeling that all ones repeated efforts have been in vain when one is trying to persuade a
woman to abandon her wish for a penis since it is unrealizable or when one is seeking to
convince a man that a passive attitude to men does not always signify castration and that it is
indispensable in many relationship in life. The rebellious overcompensation of the male
produces one of the strongest transference resistances. The resistance prevents any change
from taking place, leading often to an impression that we have reached bedrock, and that thus
our activities are at an end.

Contemporary contributions
They are are so many contributions that I will limit myself to my experience and reading. I
suggest to clarify our discussion by opposing the question when aroused in Neurotic patient
and in non neurotic patient before to come to some views about Termination.
Psychoanalysis and Transference Neurosis
We, more or less, have a three part model for the psychoanalytical process as a whole.
It may be out of an ideology based on who we are, hopefully neurotic people with an analysed
reference to mother and father, acknowledging the difference in generation, and that by birth
we acknowledge being men or women, a difference in sexes which started as a scaring
dilemna and finally discovered as an enjoyable stance in life. In my country many are very
much concerned by what is termed a double diffrence which is to be considered in the
opening phase of analysis, and later in its terminal phase. The analyst operating as an
Oedipal attractor to quote my colleague Michel Ody (1989), the analyst as an attractor
organising for the transference neurose to develop in order to be interpreted. Its interpretation
being first on a superficial level, close to role playing. This leads to a second phase
identifying defence and resistance and their working through opening for an attempt at
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elaborating the pre-oedipal experiences, which Melanie Klein (1928, 1945) contributed to
enlighten. The terminal phase making possible a fresh new picture of the persons life
experience. We certainly do not content ourselves with the the disparition of symptoms, but
commit ourselves to the development of a living capacity in our patient for working and
loving. In her presentation at a training Seminar, Litza Guttieres-Green (1998) describes
ending as having to find a pathway between Charybdis and Sylla, between a premature ending
and interminability. Both patient and analyst have blind spots, scotoma which make the
accepted decision for termination gambling (Roger Perron). A different case is when the
psychoanalytic process transforms in auto-analysis which makes ending an accepted
incompletion (Cesar and Sara Botella). It is obvious that each analyst experience goes
together with theoretical views which are impeding on the decision to make about starting or
not analysis with such or such a person, aswell as about ending. On the patient side Erik
Erikson (1980) invite us to keep in mind not only the actual state of affair, but to consider the
generational cycle which we have to think over as Freud point it about the phallic phase in
women analysis, or as Elliot Jacques (1965, 1980) when describing about mid-life crisis in
men and women, not to say, when working with an adolescent or a child how important it is
to widen the scope to include families in it.

Psychoanalysis beyond the Transference Neurosis

The Border-Line/Etats Limites. The extension of psychoanalysis to pathology with

severe narcissistic alteration led modern analysis to pay close attention to narcissism. Kohut
even proposed to forget about the instincts theory, and to concentrate on the analysis of the
self. But contemporary analysts would rather hold together the instinct theory with the
development of the theory of narcissism.
Many have contributed to the importance of narcissism and given it the relevant part which it
deserves after Freud had developped (in Beyond the pleasure principle, 1920g) a second
theory of the Instincts with the introduction of a Death instincts held to be responsable of
interminability . Rosenfeld (1964, 1987) introduced a Destructive narcissism responsable for
the Charybdis of premature termination : Improvement has to be measured in terms of the
integration of the narcissitic parts of the personality with [the more normal object-directed
part of the personality] (p:179). Eero Rechardt (2004) with Pentti Ikonen made clear the

10

connexion between the death instincts and narcissism which are obstacle to a satisfactory
termination of the stubborn battle of the mind (p : 47).
In France Andr Green has contributed to our clinical experience with our difficult patient
trough Life Narcissism, Death Narcissism (1982) and the description of the Central Phobic
Position (1998). Its description borrows to Freuds Project (1895) . Two processes are
described, a direct flow from a to b, and a side-cathexis which replaces the direct flow from a
to b when it is to release displeasure. Greens hypothesis is that the relation between a and the
side-cathexis is related to the inhibited flow from a to b, so that the analysis of this side
cathexis in relation to a should give an idea, even if only partial and approximative, to the
inhibited relation a/b. Greens model combine cathexis, the dynamic of meaning, repression
and resistance, as well as association as a mode of recognition permitting indirect and partial
access to the repressed unconscious.
Affects play the most important role in this process, but tracing them is not a sufficient pointer
towards what should lead to the latent meaning. They play the most important role in the
associationss diffraction, deviations, ruptures or progressions. But tracing affects would not
provide a sufficient pointer towards what should lead to the latent meaning as they merely
have a function of connoting isolated aspect of what is said with little or no relevant part in
the network of meaning conveyed by the work of association.
Association formed a tree-like model in which the apparent disorder of communication permit
an analytic understanding resulting from the effects of a mutually resonating chain of
signifiers that increases the value of this functioning. Two different type of associations are
to be considered : Retroactive reverberation and heralding anticipation. They will act either
in concert or alternately, helping us to understand that free association gives us access to a
complex temporal structure that challenges the apparent linearity of the discourse ... it means
that psychic organisation is constantly being reshaped over the course of time.
The Central Phobic Position has been described to work with borderline states, but it proves
to be useful with many contemporary patient who are thought of as neurotic states. It certainly
help to measure the termination work before ending.
Most analysts are indebted to Winnicott (1960, 1971) who insisted so much on being. He
unsderstood interminability in connection

with destructiveness and the strength of the

instincts together with maternal fixation. But his description of the self (1960) led him to
introduce the false-self (1971) aiming less to being, than to please. We read The general
principle seems to me to be valid that psychotherapy is done in the overlap of the two play
areas, that of the patient, and that of the therapist. If the therapsit cannot play, then something
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needs to be done to enable the patient to become able to play, after which psychotherapy may
begin. The reason why playing is essential is that it is in playing that the
patient is being creative ... and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the
self (p: 63).
-

Psychosis and Neurosis. They are less opposed nowadays that they were in Freuds

time. The main reason for this is that we are no more considering it as a either/or question.
After Freud himself, and pioneers as Paul Federn some analysts have developped a special
skill to work with psychotic patient. I already have mentioned Herbert Rosenfeld ans Andr
Green who together with Jean-Luc Donnet have reported about a patient who described
himself as born out of it or id, in french language lenfant de a. My colleague Maria
Pasche often said about her young psychotic patient who improved a lot with her, that she was
convinced to cure them if only she could treat them for one thousand years.
Bion (1965) was interested in thoughts and thinking which made possible an emotional
knowledge. Maturing implying that one take full responsability for oneself without rejecting
responsability outside.
John Kafka (1989) offers an experience as a psychoanalyst, a psychiatrist and a researcher.
His multiple-reality concept apply to therapeutic thinking to undo the confusion between
animate and inanimate, animation opening for termination.

Terminating

In my experience, either as an analysand or as an analyst I come to a gross evaluation

of four years as an average lenght of time which is critical to any psychoanalytic treatment.
Termination much before is usually the result of a breakdown which overwhelmed my
individual ressources when the analysand was not fully responsable for himself but depending
on family or insurance ressources to finance ones treatment. The breakdown of analysis may
also be the price paid both by analysand and analyst when the setting has been crual to the
analysand as for exemple this patient who could not think about her commitment about
paying for a missed session on the day of her fathers funeral. It happens in such case that a
split favours resuming analysis with a different analyst.
Terminating in such a delay is often the case when symptoms have disapeared, or lessen to a
great extent ; but with resistance to deepen the integrative working through of the narcissistic
positions. As for example in a woman about the shift from a phallic stance to genitality : a

12

conversion here understood as when skying, that is changing direction with a U-turn. The
analyst has to endure a feeling of incompletion miroring the patients wish not to pursue.
But often the analyst come to think that no further change are expected, nor from the patient,
nor from the analyst, which however leave open the question of mutual scotoma.
In many cases there is no idea of shortening the analysis. On the opposite, a concern for truth
over oneself leads to an oscillation between the actual transferential experience and the past
reconstructed in analysis. Seven years is a time when analysis is not exhausted, but living with
such a vitality that analysand and analyst may consider to leave with no more appointments.
Some will never return. Others will turn up years later, sometime after a new event occurs
challenging the original achievement. It may be the case aswell with person who undertake a
psychoanalytic training, as with patient who came to suffer less.

REFERENCES
Aulagnier Pierra, La violence de lInterprtation-du Pictogramme lnonc, Paris, PUF,
1975
Bion Wilfred R., Transformations, London Heinnemann, 1965
Bouvet Maurice, La relation dObjet, uvre Psychanalytique I, Paris, Payot, 1967
Erikson Erik H., On the Generational Cycle, an Adress , in I.J.P., 61, 213-223
Ferenczi Sandor, (1927), The Problem of the Termination of the Analysis, in Selected Papers,
Problems and Methods of Psychoanalysis, London, 1955
Freud Sigismund, (1937c), Analysis Terminable and Interminable, in SE XXIII, London,
Hogarth, 1964
Garcia Javier, End of Analysis. From the Demand of Love to the Gift : Three Dreams and a
Present, in PIEEs 14th Summer School, Clinical use of Dreams,
Odessa, 2007
Glover Edward (1955), The terminal phase (1) & (2), The Technique of Psycho-Analysis,
Madison, Int. Univ. Press, 1986
Green Andr (1982), Life Narcissism, Death narcissism, London, Free Association Books,
2001
(1998), The Central Phobic Position, with a model of the free asociation
method, in Psychoanalysis, A Paradigm for Clinical Thinking, London,
Free Association Books, 2005
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