@article{ref1,
title="'Too early, too late': endings in psychotherapy - an attachment perspective",
journal="British journal of psychotherapy",
year="1997",
author="Holmes, Jeremy",
volume="14",
number="2",
pages="159-171",
abstract="Endings in psychoanalytic psychotherapy are often problematic, especially in publicly-funded therapies. Endings may be premature or delayed -?too soon?or?too late?. This paper looks at some parallels between endings in literature and endings in psychotherapy; considers the gender bias in Freud's?Analysis Terminable and Interminable?; introduces evidence from psychotherapy research; and puts forward an attachment-informed approach to ending, based on the distinction between avoidant and ambivalent attachment and how this may be played out by both therapist and patient in the transference-countertransfence matrix. A controlling therapist with an avoidant patient may end?too early?, an over-empathic therapist with an ambivalent patient may end?too late?. Clinical examples illustrate these theoretical points.<p />",
language="en",
issn="0265-9883",
doi="10.1111/j.1752-0118.1997.tb00367.x",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0118.1997.tb00367.x"
}