ABSTRACT
In 1987, I announced to all my clients that I would be retiring from my analytical practice in one year. During that year each person coped with my impending retirement, or we might say impending abandonment, in their own way. One woman asked me, “How can you retire? What will happen?” I replied, “I don’t know. I’ve never retired before. We’ll just have to wait and see.” One woman left therapy nine months before the date of my retirement; she told me that she wanted to leave me rather than to have me leave her. And I realized in myself that I, also, was having to cope with losses. I felt sad about separating from and closing off the kinds of relationships that are so special in analytic work.
