Description: The word “termination” is inadequate for the various ways in which a psychoanalytic treatment may be concluded.  The word “termination” derives from Freud’s scant work on the conclusion of psychoanalytic treatment.  Some treatments end abruptly, unilaterally, and/or with intense affective aspects and results that fall short of the treatment goals.  At best, “termination” is a shortcut for the variety of ways, satisfactory and not so satisfactory, that treatments conclude.  This course will consider the history of “termination” in terms of older classical views, including but not limited to Freud’s.

More contemporary Freudian and relational/interpersonal points of view will also be considered.  Other dimensions of a treatment’s conclusion will also be studied:  who decides, whether it is planned or not, mutual, or not, or an impasse.  Further, we will study indicators for concluding treatment, and complicating factors such as diagnosis, a history of trauma, and attachment issues. Intersecting identities and oppressions, and aspects of termination particular to children, adolescents, and families will also be considered.

Target Audience: This course is appropriate for intermediate to advanced students, as well as clinicians with extensive experience who have the permission of the instructor.

Format: We will illustrate treatment-ending processes and techniques through vignettes provided by the instructor and class members. For each class, each member is asked to complete the assigned readings, be prepared to critique the concepts and identified techniques if any in the readings and to present a brief clinical vignette. The instructor will start the conceptual reviews each time; each candidate should also be prepared to identify and critique a concept and/or practice from the readings each week. We will then move to discussion of clinical vignettes that fit each class. The vignette should illustrate the topic for the class and raise or answer a question or two about the class topic. We should endeavor to achieve a balance in each class between review of literature and discussion of vignettes.

About the Instructors:
Dorothy Evans Holmes, PhD, is a Teaching, Training, and Supervising Analyst in the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas, Professor and PsyD Program Director Emerita at the George Washington University, and Teaching, Training and Supervising Analyst Emerita at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. Dr. Holmes is widely published on the psychoanalysis of race and gender and currently interrogates dynamic and institutional factors that impede the psychoanalytic examination of intersectionality. Her most recent publication is Holmes, D. (2022). Neutrality is not neutral. JAPA, 70: 317-322. Dr. Holmes served on the editorial boards of the IJP and JAPA and now serves on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. She is the eponymous Chair of the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis.

Elissa Baldwin Murphy, PhD, LCSW is a child, adolescent, and adult psychoanalyst practicing in Durham, NC. She provides clinical supervision and consultation to clinicians (individually and in groups) and is a psychoanalytic psychotherapy supervisor with the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas (PCC).

Dr. Murphy is a graduate of the NCSU School of Design (BLA), the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work (MSW), the Smith College School for Social Work (PhD) and the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas (Certificates in Child/Adolescent and Adult Psychoanalysis). She is trained as a Circle of Security Parent Facilitator and holds a certificate in Advanced Clinical Supervision from the Smith College School for Social Work.

Dr. Murphy serves as a faculty member and Curriculum Chair for the PCC, is an active member of the PCC Anti-Racism Task Force, coordinates an ongoing study group on Race & Psychoanalysis within the PCC, and has been a lecturer and/or research advisor at the PCC, the Smith College School for Social Work, and the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work.