ABSTRACT
Conducting aspects of treatment outside the office is unlikely to be considered unorthodox by nonpsychoanalytic therapists. For the patient, a significant change in the frame of therapy often gives rise to an intensification of transference wishes, such as the desire to be a part of the therapist’s life outside the office. Some therapists are opting to become “embedded” in primary care offices and may often be expected to initially meet patients in a consulting room before agreeing to meet regularly in their private office which may be located off-site. The significant change in the frame occasioned by meeting outside the office can be destabilizing for patients who are already regressed or in the throes of an intense transference. Realizing that the patient’s family had decathected their relationship too much to be re-engaged, J. Norton decided to make her treatment goal that of making the patient’s death less lonely and frightening.
