Anita Schmukler has made a significant contribution not only to child and adolescent psychoanalysis, but to our understanding of how children and adolescents engage in saying goodbye. This process is viewed though a series of case presentations that enable each reader to know the clinical data on which the theoretical and technical aspects of termination are considered. I recommend this casebook to all child and adolescent experts because 'saying goodbye' is such a vital experience in growing up.
- Albert J. Solnit, M.D., Yale Child Study Center
In this much-needed and admirable collection of papers, termination of psychoanalytic treatment is addressed from many different perspectives. Dynamically linking termination to separation processes, reactions to loss, and the capacity to mourn, the book delineates, from the fresh perspective of termination issues, the normal and pathological conflicts of childhood and adolescence. The clinical papers and the theoretical expositions explore these complex issues with impressive scholarship. Saying Goodbye should be required reading for every child analyst and will greatly benefit adult analysts as well.
Peter B. Neubauer, M.D., Department of Psychiatry, New York University
Saying Goodbye is much more than a casebook of termination, for in addition to rich and vivid clinical descriptions of the termination experiences of 10 child and adolescent patients, it contains comprehensive and comprehensible discussions of the theoretical issues involved in termination. These issues are basic and practical: criteria for termination and recognition of the patient's entry into this phase of analysis; the analytic process and the analyst's interventions during this phase; the analyst's emotional reactions to both patients and their parents; and the role of the parents in termination. Most importantly, Schmukler and her contributors deal extensively with children's and adolescents' many reactions to ending treatment: their creative adaptations, their mourning and defenses against grief and anxiety; and their reworking of major conflicts as they prepare to lose the therapist. The book provides many helpful technical suggestions for helping children to engage productively in termination. It is essential reading for analysts and therapists who work with chidren and adolescents and will enrich the work of those who treat adults.
- Jules Glenn, M.D., Former President, Association for Child Psychoanalysis
The volume accomplishes its set goal: to provide clinical examples of the termination process in children of different developmental levels and varying psychopathology and to develop a set of concepts and principles to inform that process.
- Moisy Shopper, M.D., International Journal of Psychoanalysis
... should be required reading for every child analyst and will greatly benefit adult analysts as well.
-Peter B. Neubauer
New York University
