Endings as gain: The capacity to end and its role in creating space for growth

The paper describes an application of child psychotherapy in a paediatric setting. It examines the crucial part that attention to endings played in a clinical intervention where the phantasy of going on for ever threatened to inhibit growth. Case material is used to illustrate the different meanings...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of child psychotherapy 1999-09, Vol.25 (3), p.379-403
Main Authors: Ryz, Patsy, Wilson, Jilian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beginnings
bifocal vision
Biological and medical sciences
boundaries
Child psychotherapy
decision making
endings
Family psychotherapy. Systemic therapy
Hooke's Law
Medical sciences
negative elasticity
non-autistic shapes
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychotherapies. Psychological and clinical counseling
Termination
too-good mothering
Treatment
Treatments
Young boys
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Summary:The paper describes an application of child psychotherapy in a paediatric setting. It examines the crucial part that attention to endings played in a clinical intervention where the phantasy of going on for ever threatened to inhibit growth. Case material is used to illustrate the different meanings and functions of endings and their significance in terms of parenting issues and developmental tasks. In this context the concept of negative elasticity is put forward as a useful tool for exploring the nature of boundaries. The final part of the paper focuses on the value of the external-reality experience of ending, its relationship to potential professional omnipotence and the importance of sustaining a tension between inner- and outer-world factors.
ISSN:0075-417X
1469-9370
DOI:10.1080/00754179908260302