ABSTRACT
The therapist’s understanding of the frame will guide how she manages the goodbyes and the message she implicitly, and perhaps explicitly, gives the clients about the future frame. If the therapist and patient can manage both to acknowledge and hold the real loss and to work through the disappointment, a forced ending can be a rich opportunity. Perhaps therapists who have been used to doing some time-limited work will be better equipped to use the imposed ending and to work with a focus. The considerable overlap between imposed and voluntary endings is indicated by N. Coltart, who says of the latter ‘there is a phase when it feels as though it is the therapist’s doing’. A phenomenological study of post-termination experience by P.S. Conway supports the view that the manner of the ending can be critical to the patient’s capacity to use the internalised therapist.
