Freud could be brilliant in his theoretical discussion of termination—an abstract discussion about when the natural point to end arrives—but he seemed less capable of helping his analysands with their actual feelings about the loss.

This chapter is in two parts: the first deals with specific developments on termination as expressed in the literature, the second with changes in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis that radically alter the meaning of termination.

In this chapter I will discuss long-term, open-ended therapy.

This chapter will serve as the transition from the purely clinical discussion to one that integrates the clinical and the social levels. The concept of a clinical logic touches on both.

There are three reasons for including a chapter on brief therapy in this discussion of termination. First, the time limits imposed by brief therapists tend to exaggerate certain termination issues. Second, it is an opportunity to make the discussion of termination more inclusive. The third reason for including a chapter on brief therapy is that it serves to expose the contradiction between the clinical logic of termination and the fact that means more than clinical condition seem to determine the length of one’s therapy.

More and more, clients enter therapy wishing to work through one or another circumscribed issue, end the therapy when they feel satisfied with the immediate results, and then return to be in therapy again when another crisis arises. It is hard to say which came first, the brief therapy or the pattern whereby more and more people begin to utilize therapy in pieces over a life time. Whichever it is, the whole meaning of termination changes.

The growth of a community of willing therapy consumers significantly influences the way termination is theorized and conducted. Therefore the discussion of termination must take into account the culture of therapy consumption.