The “dragons of primeval days”: Termination and the persistence of the infantile

ABSTRACT

The persistence of the infantile is nowhere more apparent than in the termination process. This dread of termination may interfere with both the patient's capacity to terminate and the analyst's capacity to let patients go. Certain patients have an intense wish to maintain a permanent connection with the analyst. Analysing that wish does not necessarily change the patient's conviction that they are not ready to fully terminate. The love experienced in the transference may be the best love relationship that the patient has ever had. The intensity and pervasiveness of the infantile in our work may best be glimpsed by studying the defences against the infantile. Ultimately, we must respect the patient's limits in some cases, rather than pick them apart and cajole the patient into another view that we prefer. Freud was perhaps uncharacteristically candid in saying that he questioned whether a true transformation was achieved at the time of termination.

KEYWORDS:

• Termination
• infantile
• defences
• therapeutic lifers