Interminable treatment: an autobiographical study.

Abstract

While the notion of interminable therapy often is seen to revolve around a patient's unfulfilled needs and inability to individuate, there may exist a strong countertransferential need on the part of the psychoanalyst to continue treatment. This countertransferential need deserves to be regarded through the prism of the power inherent in the analyst's role. This article presents aspects of the author's complex personal analysis marked by the analyst's refusal to allow for termination and, notably, the consequent impact on the patient.