PREMATURE TERMINATION IN THE MIDST OF PSYCHOTHERAPY - 3 PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVES

This article addresses patient's terminating prematurely in the midst of treatment from the drive/structural, object relations, and self psychology perspectives. The theoretical speculations offered by these three models concerning the involvement of transference issues and understanding the reasons patients offer for terminating prematurely are applied to the case material of a patient who ended treatment prematurely. When the commonalities across these three theories of psychological functioning are examined, conflicts over dependency appear to play a central role in the understanding of premature terminations that occur in the midst of treatment.