Termination and repetition: The dissolution of the frame

Beginning with Freud, analysts have observed that the pull to repeat is particularly strong as analysis approaches termination and that transferences that have come to light earlier in the analysis are revived and reworked at this time. It is also well known that primitive transferences, may make an appearance at the termination phase for what has been believed to be the first time. Drawing upon the work of Bleger, the author explores these primitve transferences and their relation to repetition. She argues that they are linked to the impending dissolution of the frame, and they are of two varieties, reflecting different levels of psychic experience. The upper level reflects symbiotic phantasies that have been invested in the frame; these have been repeated silently throughout the analysis in the daily operation of the analytic method and the arrangements of the analysis. The second, lower level, which involves somatic disturbance, disorganization, and loss of stable identity, is less clearly a repetition and less well elaborated in phantasy; this set of transferences reflects the disturbance of the deep structure of the setting, linked to bodily experiences of oneness with the early object. The author presents clinical material from the termination phase to illustrate the emergence of these two levels of primitive transference and the way they may be worked through.