Reconciliation of Time Perspectives as a Criterion for Therapy Completion

Giancarlo Trombini, the main author of this article, has demonstrated in a series of empirical studies based on treatment examples from psychoanalytic psychotherapy that the development of relational dynamics in therapy can be assessed in an objectively verifiable way using a phenomenological criterion based on the narrative content of each session. This criterion is the comparison between the manifest dream and the subsequent associations (MDAC; Trombini, 2010, 2014, 2015). This is a contribution to the reflexive pole of analytic psychotherapy, which is, after all, characterized by a constant oscillation between the pole of reflection and the pole of a “dreaming reception.” The present contribution continues this research with the treatment of the concluding phase of therapy, which is related to certain turning points in the processes of change in therapy (Di Chiara, 2003).