Am J Psychiatry 1986; 143:561-572
Copyright © 1986 by American Psychiatric Association
The dying psychotherapist
AH Kaplan and D Rothman
A previously unpublished paper by a dying psychotherapist describes the
therapeutic use of the ensuing grief reactions of five patients to his
terminal illness to help them deal with the effects of their previous
losses, deprivations, and abandonments. Follow-up interviews with these
patients and their subsequent psychotherapists shed light on the efficacy
of such therapeutic efforts, the character of the communication of the
terminal illness, the transference and countertransference reactions that
interfered with the inevitable separation, and conclusions by previous
authors regarding patients' reactions to the deaths of their therapists.
