Forced Endings in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Anne Power is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist working with individuals and couples. She teaches at Regent's University London. She is interested in retirement, both as a supervisor and as a middle-aged therapist wondering how she will manage this transition herself.

"In a long term therapy the retirement of the therapist, be it from age, illness, sabbatical, maternity or relocation, is a challenge to both patient and therapist. This book shows how thirteen therapists met that challenge. The author makes good use of attachment theory which provides a fascinating and appropriate over-arching framework for her analysis." - Colin Murray Parkes"A work of tremendous originality, Anne Power’s new book tackles the vital but hitherto much neglected subject of retirement with the depth of a great investigator and with the breadth of creative thinker. Drawing upon extensive primary research and sensitive clinical understanding, the author allows us all – whether old or young – to engage with key questions about endings and mortality with admirable sensitivity and compassion. This volume fills a huge gap in the mental health literature by examining not only the vicissitudes of retirement but, also, the heaving subject of endings more generally – whether traumatic or ordinary – in such a useful way." - Professor Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London; Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Arts at the University of Roehampton; and Consultant in Psychology to The Bowlby Centre"This book is timely and thought-provoking. It grasps the nettle of therapists’ retirement dilemmas firmly and skilfully. I found it very compelling reading, both because of its immediate relevance to therapists and supervisors today, and because the stories it traces in the retirees own words are so rich and engaging. This book is a masterpiece of qualitative research, drawing on thirteen in-depth interviews, as well as a broad range of additional sources. Anne Power poses and explores a multitude of questions about when, how, why and with what support and with what in mind can therapists tackle the issue of ending their working life. I was deeply moved, sobered, intrigued and inspired."- Roz Carroll, MA Cantab, UKCP reg psychotherapist, trainer on the MInster Centre MA in Integrative Psychotherapy"This is a wonderfully well written, sensitive and important book which examines, though interviews with therapists, the issues and challenges involved in the processes of retirement, ending and loss in a profession that has tended to avoid consideration of this significant aspect of life. An essential read for therapists of all ages in relation to their personal and professional journeys." - Dr Christine Driver, SAP and FPC Training Analyst, Supervisor, Director of Training, WPF Therapy

• Introduction Introduction to the contributors Chapter 1 Why retire? Chapter 2 How to begin? Chapter 3 How do patients respond to being left? Chapter 4 How to manage the ending? Chapter 5 Guilt in the countertransference? Chapter 6 How helpful is supervision? Chapter 7 What is lost? Chapter 8 What is next? Chapter 9 How similar are other imposed endings? Conclusion Appendix: Questions about closures