The author presents and discusses the difficulties of the ending of the psychoanalysis, as equivalent to a state of mourning that has specific characteristics, as established among other authors, Melanie Klein (1991): “the ending reactivates in the patient more archaic situations of separation and has the nature of an experience of weans” (p. 65). The mourning of the ending of psychoanalysis has to be studied, also, in the context of the analysts, considering the didactic analyses and in the specificity of this relation. Candidates can count on the probability that they will have contact with their fellow analysts after the ending; but the typical “common patients” cannot count on any type of contact and, thus, it is probable that they suffer a much more intense mourning effect than in the case of the candidates. All these considerations contribute to demonstrate that mourning is an important subject, to be considered in psychoanalytical studies on the ending and the after-ending of analyses.
Psychoanalysis; Grief; End of analysis