Why is it that therapists, those normally responsible people, find it so difficult to think about and talk about retirement? Or indeed to put sensible arrangements in place should they become seriously ill or die? Drawing on my own experiences of retiring from clinical practice, as well as having to take time off for illness, I shall examine these and other questions. Could be that those aspects of ourselves which bring us into this work are also those which make it so hard for us to walk away from it, whether temporarily or permanently?

Liz Standish was for many years a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist working in private practice. She was a training analyst and supervisor for the Severnside Institute for Psychotherapy in Bristol and the West Midlands Institute for Psychotherapy and also taught on the Masters course in Psychodynamic Studies at Oxford University. She has published a number of papers in journals, including the Lancet, and her  paper on working with dissociated states in private practice was commended for the Roszika Parker prize and published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy. Her most recent paper, “A Steppenwolf called Brian: reflections on childhood and creativity” will be published shortly in Psychodynamic Practice. She has retired from clinical work but now enjoys supervising, writing and playing with grandchildren.