Individuation, countertransference and the death of a client

Abstract

Many art therapists work with client groups who confront death and dying on a daily basis. My experience is rather different as I work in private practice as a Jungian analyst as well as an art psychotherapist. It was the deaths from cancer, at a relatively early age, of two of my private clients and the diagnosis of a third which led me to consider this topic. The paper is an exploration of boundaries and transference and countertransference issues which emerge when, in the process of therapy, the client becomes terminally ill. It is proposed that those who are about to die may form particularly intense erotic attachments and that this is characteristic of a speeding up of the individuation process. The paper is based on the case of a suicidally depressed man who formed an immediate, dependent and erotic transference. After three months, he was diagnosed as having an inoperable lung cancer. From then on the analytic frame was challenged by pressures to act out in a number of different ways. I will argue that maintenance of the analytic frame enabled the individuation process to continue to the end.¹