NPSI March Scientific Meeting
On Terminating, Ending, and Not Ending
Presented by Stephen Purcell, MD, FIPA

“As I began to think, self-consciously, about termination, I had the surprising realization that, despite being involved in the endings of many analyses, I did not know with clarity or in any theoretical detail how I thought about the subject.” So begins Stephen Purcell, with characteristic humility, his exploration of analytic termination—a dimension of psychoanalysis with which Sigmund Freud (1937) himself famously struggled in Analysis Terminable and Interminable.

Stephen Purcell presents his paper, “On Terminating, Ending, and Not Ending.” He reflects on formative experiences with analytic terminations, including the first termination he was involved in when he was a candidate, and offers tentative conclusions about two principles that appear central to all terminations. He also addresses some of the complexities of ending very long analyses; mechanisms by which an analyst’s theory may shape the phenomena of termination; how we might understand themes of death in termination; the enduring questions surrounding post-termination contact between analysts and their patients—raising, finally, the related issue of whether analytic relationships ever can, or should, ever truly be ended.

Learning Objectives:

1. Specify processes by which some phenomena of termination might be shaped by the analyst’s theory.

2. Recognize aspects of termination that are complicated by a patient’s history of trauma.

3. Understand themes of “death” in termination processes as having multiple underlying sources.