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‘TOO EARLY, TOO LATE’: ENDINGS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY ‐ AN ATTACHMENT PERSPECTIVE
Author(s) -
Holmes Jeremy
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
british journal of psychotherapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.442
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1752-0118
pISSN - 0265-9883
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-0118.1997.tb00367.x
Subject(s) - parallels , ambivalence , psychotherapist , psychology , psychoanalytic theory , perspective (graphical) , psychoanalysis , mechanical engineering , artificial intelligence , computer science , engineering
Endings in psychoanalytic psychotherapy are often problematic, especially in publicly‐funded therapies. Endings may be premature or delayed ‐‘too soon’or‘too late’. This paper looks at some parallels between endings in literature and endings in psychotherapy; considers the gender bias in Freud's‘Analysis Terminable and Interminable’; introduces evidence from psychotherapy research; and puts forward an attachment‐informed approach to ending, based on the distinction between avoidant and ambivalent attachment and how this may be played out by both therapist and patient in the transference‐countertransfence matrix. A controlling therapist with an avoidant patient may end‘too early’, an over‐empathic therapist with an ambivalent patient may end‘too late’. Clinical examples illustrate these theoretical points.