The patient's relation to time during the final minutes of a psychotherapy session

People must relate to time and the manner in which they relate to time is often a reflection of their object relationships and level of development. A patient's relationship to time throughout a therapy session can be a particular perspective from which object relationships and transference issues can be viewed. The patient's relationship to time during the final minutes of psychotherapy sessions provides a particularly revealing opportunity for observing a patient's desires, affect, and level of functioning. Clinical examples of patients' behaviors during the final minutes of psychotherapy sessions have demonstrated a variety of levels of object relationships. A number of affects have been described in these examples.