Analysis terminable and interminable' 50 years afterwards. Analysis of adolescents

The author uses Freud's ideas on the natural period of an analysis as a theoretical background for the presentation of a clinical case. The patient came to analysis as a girl of 15. For the two years before the consultation Inés had suffered from 'absences' when faced with situations she has found difficult to cope with. There appeared to be no neurological basis for these absences of consciousness. The analysis has now lasted for two and a half years. The author presents the facts of the case with a view to the response of his readers as to the indications for termination. He asks for the ideas of his readers on what criteria should be taken for the beginning of termination: the disappearance of symptoms, the working through of the oedipal conflict, the resolution of the transference neurosis, or some combination of these and other indications.