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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One has the opportunity and responsibility to become an analyst in one’s own terms in the course of the years of practice that follow the completion of formal analytic training. The authors discuss their understanding of some of the maturational experiences that have contributed to their becoming analysts in their own terms. They believe that the most important element in the process of their maturation as analysts has been the development of the capacity to make use of what is unique and idiosyncratic to each of them; each, when at his best, conducts himself as an analyst in a way that reflects his own analytic style; his own way of being with, and talking with, his patients; his own form of the practice of psychoanalysis. The types of maturational experiences that the authors examine include situations in which they have learned to listen to themselves speak with their patients and, in so doing, begin to develop a voice of their own; experiences of growth that have occurred in the context of presenting clinical material to a consultant; making self-analytic use of their experience with their patients; creating/discovering themselves as analysts in the experience of analytic writing (with particular attention paid to the maturational experience involved in writing the current paper); and responding to a need to keep changing, to be original in their thinking and behavior as analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pluralism is the hallmark of 21st century psychoanalytic discourse. Nevertheless, an unpleasant byproduct of pluralism is a tendency in some quarters to retreat into orthodoxy, stemming from a perceived need to shore up theoretical boundaries in the service of differentiating one theory from another. The delineation of borders places us at a risk of losing sight of the fact that genuine psychoanalytic thinking is fundamentally non-reductionistic. Moreover, the core psychoanalytic notion of overdetermination, which Freud never abandoned throughout his career, has recently been neglected as authors argue in their communications that one point of view is better than another. Both analysts and their patients secretly are drawn to simple formulations that eschew complexity. The need to remain open to the ‘infinite space’ of meaning, motive, and causation should be a hallmark of clinical psychoanalytic practice. The author considers the implications for technique, and provides case material to illustrate some of the challenges inherent in approaching psychoanalytic work as a complex phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]