When therapy is over and you are healed to the best of your ability, is it time to mourn or celebrate the end of the therapeutic relationship?

Ten years ago, I went to a David Cassidy concert in Perth and pressed myself up against the stage for him to come down and hold my hand, which he did.  But apparently I held on for so long he had to scream in my face, “LET GO!”

That was the best advice I have ever received.  I have finally taken David up on his offer and would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his insight and wisdom.  I have let go.  I have let go of all that emotional baggage I have been carrying around with me for nearly fifty years.

Imagine carrying fifty kilos of rubbish on your back, an amount that has accumulated with every year you have lived on this earth, then picture yourself dumping it forever down a deep, deep shaft.

After embracing mindfulness and acceptance I have done that and the feeling of freedom that entails is quite an intoxicating experience.  That is not to say my problems have vanished in a puff of blue smoke; quite the contrary, they are still there only now I have a different attitude towards them.  I am not carrying them on my back.  They appear to have taken on an amorphous, abstract quality whereby they exist somewhere in space and time but are no longer part of me.  They are a separate entity that has no power, no legitimacy and no control over my thoughts, feelings, actions and behaviours.

Eight years ago, after many months of frantic searching, I finally found a photo of my therapist with her family on the internet.  I cut her face out and stuck it on her business card and carried it in my handbag.  Every so often, when I was feeling insecurely dependent, I would take it out and look at it until it became rather worn around the edges.  It was a great source of comfort to me and kept me connected with her through some very dark times.  She never knew about this.

Perhaps it would be a good idea, especially for therapists who conduct Dialectical Behaviour Therapy to have a business card with a photo – a professional one not a personal family photo.  This way clients do not have to ask, beg or grovel and debase themselves asking for a photo from their beloved but reluctant therapist, nor spend hours furtively searching on the internet for an illicit image of someone they are perhaps pathologically attached to.  When you have a legitimate source of something private the guilt and shame of dependency, something which regressed clients seem to feel a lot of, can disappear or at least lessen in intensity.

It took a lot of mindfulness and mental strength to get through December 2010.  Christmas and the New Year are incredibly stressful times for some.  In Australia it is hot, so we have the heat to contend with, but cooking all day in a stifling kitchen with inadequate air conditioning is not part of my challenge of the season.

Organizing who goes where on what day, getting the tree up, buying the presents, posting the cards, making the Christmas cake, food shopping, wrapping the presents and decking the halls with boughs of holly is the easiest part in the world.

What is not so simple is coming to terms with the fact that we do not see certain family members because of a major fallout fifteen years ago.  One could very easily blame my mental health issues for this and sometimes when I feel kicked and down I do blame myself.  But relationships are never quite that black and white. 

My therapist sent me a text message a few weeks ago on the morning of my therapy.  Would I like to go for a walk with her?  Instead of sitting in her office and trying to find a logical, rational solution to my problems, would I like to go for a walk around the local park?  She had been trying to get me to exercise for many years and finally I was walking on my own but I’d lost some of that motivation recently and was having difficulty finding it again.

Many years ago this offer would have sent me into a transference psychosis tailspin with its endless possibilities of real love and a post-therapy relationship, but with a lot of water under the therapeutic bridge she understood me well enough to know I would now be able to make creative symbolic meaning out of it, rather than a literal one. 

There are some things I need to be taught, that I cannot learn for myself.  If I had my way, I would mire myself in binge-eating, TV marathons, smoking, drinking and drug-taking all enveloped in a toxic bubble of anxiety and depression.  It’s an easy, seductive path I get lured down occasionally.  But with help and inspiration from others, especially my therapist, I can pull myself out of that hole and into life.

Here are five things I have learned from my therapist that I could not teach myself.

My therapist has loads of ornaments, teddy bears and objets d’art on the shelves of her office that I have become familiar with over the years. What I was not so familiar with was the fact that they were given to her by other clients. Had I known that at the time, I would have been practicing my best sling-shot at them while she made me a nice cup of tea.

One of my gifts is up there, too — a teddy bear, which I bought to keep an eye on her and make sure she is safe, and I begrudgingly have accepted that other items from the enemy have a right to be there as well. I have bought other gifts for her over the years, but these are mainly small, inexpensive and perishable items given for reasons of sincere gratitude for going above and beyond the call of duty in times of crises.

According to Nancy McWilliams’ Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Practitioner’s Guide, “Gifts may be fairly innocent or may be loaded with meaning.” What she is saying is that a bunch of flowers or basket of fruit is OK, but a Mercedes-Benz, a sixty-meter yacht, a trio of islands in the Caribbean, or a 10-carat diamond ring might be sending more than just an expression of thanks.