therapist at the beginning of therapy and, likewise, three patients (18.75%)reported having discussed therapy length with the therapist. Half of the sample (eight patients; 50.0%) indicated having agreed on termination with their therapist (agreement group). Agreement on termination included the two cases in which therapists proposed termination and six cases where patients brought the issue to therapy and their therapist agreed on termination. The other half of the sample, reported either to have dropped out or to have met with opposition from their therapist when proposing termination (disagreement group). These two halves will be referred to as “agreement/disagreement” groups. Reasons for termination were varied and included both positive reasons, such as goal accomplishment; and negative reasons: lack of new topics; difficulties in the therapeutic relationship; and not perceiving new changes, among others. All participants gave more than one reason for termination; typically the agreement group reported more positive reasons, while the disagreement patients reported more negative reasons for termination. Although all patients expressed having changed due to therapy, patients with agreement on termination gave better scores of satisfaction ( M=8.25; SD=.46) than the disagreement group (M=6.65; SD=1.6 ). Also, patients valued those therapists that proposed termination and/or referred that they would have liked their therapist to be more active by proposing termination. H*2/-22*$#! Most of our findings go in line with prior research in the area given that termination is more often proposed by patients than therapists (Olivera et al., 2013); positive terminations are related to good outcome and satisfaction with the therapy (Knox et al., 2011; Roe, Dekel, Harel, & Fennig, 2006) and motives for termination can be grouped in “positive” and “negative or conflictive” (Renk & Dinger, 2002). The unique value of this study is that it identifies a trend in psychoanalytic treatments in Buenos Aires in which most therapists do not talk about goals, length or termination of the therapeutic process and wait for the patients to address the issue. Whether they can agree with their patient about termination or not, will have an impact on the patient´s satisfaction with therapy and how the whole process will be remembered. E*0*.1.*$#2! The most salient limits of this study are that it has a small and nonrepresentative sample; it is based on retrospective recall; and there is no information about the therapists´ aside from what patients said. Nevertheless, this kind of research opens the window to how patients experience their termination and what they value most from the psychoanalytic therapy. It is of major importance to continue in this line of work in order to improve the psychoanalytic practice. G$#.1/.\!
julieta.olivera@comunidad.ub.edu.ar Zabala 1857, Office 15 Floor 6, Buenos Aires, Argentina
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