Termination in the Dora case

Freud's insistence on interpreting Dora's second dream after she had announced that this would be her last analytic session illustrates his preoccupation with dreams as well as his failure to understand what Dora wanted from the analysis. Freud remained concerned with the relationship between Dora's symptoms (dreams) and her psychic reality; she was more interested in the external realities of her life, e.g., leaving analysis. Although the theme of termination was noted in Freud's interpretation of Dora's first dream, it was neglected during the final two weeks of the analysis. Freud's interpretations of Dora's dreams became the subject of the analysis, and Dora felt excluded. Several aspects of Freud's negative countertransference have been noted above: the analytic situation in many ways paralleled Dora's relationship with her mother; negative maternal elements in the transference destroyed any hopes Dora might have had of finding a suitable parent in Freud. The analysis ended with both Freud and Dora feeling betrayed.