Boy can I ever relate to this one! The grieving process for me has been about a year now. It has been a very long road of emotional ups and downs. I am finally getting to the point now where I feel I’ve internalized our relationship. The months of grieving, pain and longing never felt like a burden, though. I’ve always felt blessed to have found him and to have known him in the way that I did…and blessed to have loved him.

I don’t need to feel special, though I do hope he remembers me. The feelings of caring that I have for him really represent the best in me. I want him to be happy and well in his life. Knowing he is happy brings me inner serenity. Knowing that I have the capability to care for another human being (even in our limited kind of relationship) in the way that I do has done wonders for my self-esteem. I have worked on my ability to let go and let love live through me and in the choices I make in my life. I connect with him when I apply the things he taught me about believing in myself and taking chances in life. I now have an inner “therapist voice” that seeks out the positive about myself and about life and love. I’ve brought him inside of my joy and inside of my love… whenever I feel those pleasant emotions, he is always there with me. Learning to hold love through loss and to not be afraid of any potential pain, has helped me to grow emotionally.

As difficult as this loss has been for me, I’ve taken the challenge of this and used it as a positive force for change and growth. I feel strong now and ready to walk alone. I still miss him every day, but he will always be with me and he will always be a part of my heart.

Thirteen years in therapy is a long time and that you got too close. Rely on your husband and friends.

I have been in therapy for 22 years now,
and it’s all been one big nightmare for me! Not only do I NOT need therapy any longer, I am so done w/ it yet that’s not how my doctor sees it! I see a Pdoc every two months, and he requires all of
his patients to see a therapist at least
every two months. So I’ve been doing the
minimum, and it’s really stupid! Just b/c I’m on meds, I need to talk to someone that isn’t doing anything for me
and just talks about herself anyway? I would never think of changing doctors, so I know this is something I’m going to
have to deal with 4 a very, very long time!

I had the opposite experience.
It had been increasingly painful to see my therapist of six years. Before the session, I always felt reluctant, and after the session, I often felt more depressed. He once was very helpful.
But I felt that he does not really know me. I felt like I’m nothing at session. I once talked to him that I was uncomfortable in a certain way he talks to me. He’s got really upset and worse, tried to convince me that I was wrong over the year which made me lose trust all the more. When I told him my decision to leave him, he was withholding tears that made me seriously depressed for the rest of the week. He insists 4 more sessions, but I could not bear the pain his session gives any more. I may be wrong, but I felt like he even used political power in the hospital. My psychiatrist had told me that the therapists are randomly assigned by the hospital and I should not care about the therapist’s feeling, and that he could talk to my therapist’s supervisor. The day after I canceled the rest of my sessions, the doctor said I MUST see him again to get ‘referral.’ “Didn’t you say that you can talk to the therapist’s supervisor?” “Well, the thing is that he is a kind of supervisor.” This moment, I realized that I have been seeing a wrong person for at least 4 years. Ironically, after terminating him, my life got so much better. I am more confident and less depressed. But this bitter memory still haunts me. I trusted a wrong person. Why did I not trust myself and my feeling?

My son had to go to a special school because of his mental health problems. My family had to be involved with the mental health team as part of the structure. I did not think this was necessary as I had sought therapy in other places and was happy with where I was. Then I met him…..the therapist assigned to our family. Unfortunately, we hit it off really well…too well. A previous therapist of mine told me to write a list of everything I want in a man. This man, also a divorcee, very sadly for me happened to have everything on my list. The boxes just kept ticking off one by one. Very sadly for me, he is now no longer my therapist as his circumstances moved him off the case. Even more sadly for me, I can’t contact him because he’s my ex-therapist, a man of great integrity. Now I have to get over it, and I cannot get him out of my mind. How can someone so perfect be so untouchable. It really isn’t fair. It’s not as though I sought his help. I was forced into it for my son’s sake, now I’m forced to quench the fire that burns within my soul. It really isn’t very fair!

I understand the emotion of ending therapy, the grieving and sense of loss. In my case, my therapist terminated me; I had transference issues and I was reluctant to be totally honest with her after realizing she would terminate me if I was honest. When evidence of my transference issues surfaced, she immediately terminated me.

It has been nearly a year, and I am seeing a different therapist. It has been a very difficult year, grieving the loss — one of my own making — and searching to find a way to forgive myself. I have spent much of this time examining my transference issues. Grief continues to be a part of my thought processes. I can’t thank her for the work she did with me, as I told her I would honor her request for no contact. Sadly, honoring that request is the only way I can demonstrate I have a modicum of integrity. I wish I could discuss this with her now, not as a prelude to being a client again, but in order to find closure. For whatever reason, I wish I could let her know that “I get it” and have perspective on this I never would have gained had I not been terminated.

Dear Ani,

I am the author of this article.

My therapist sees about 30 clients a week. Of those thirty possibly three or four (or more) would like to have an intense relationship post-therapy with her, both male and female, me being one of them. Or at least I used to be.

My therapist has her own intense relationships with family, friends and her long-term partner. When I found out she had a long-term partner I was devastated. I wanted it to be me. She also has adult children who can exhaust her emotionally, just like any mother. They all want her undivided attention when she is not working. She dearly loves her family and partner and cares deeply for her clients. But, as she once said to me, she’s not allowed to fall in love with clients, is not able to and she doesn’t want to because they are her clients. Even if she did, would she put at risk losing her livelihood, her registration, her career, her reputation, something she spent eight years studying for and for the past fifteen years gained a respectable living from, just for a brief fling because she didn’t know how to say no to an emotionally needy person? That is why she is the highly-regarded professional health care worker and we are the clients. We pay these people to learn from them how to say no so we too can live better, authentic, fuller lives where our needs are met at an equal level of intensity. She has taught me that my family and my husband love me deeply and I have fallen in love with them again.

I also know my therapist is not the same person outside therapy. She has needs as well, political views I might not agree with, points of view on matters I would find distasteful, or we simply might not be compatible talking about anything other than me, me, me, me, or me. Also it would be most disconcerting to have her suddenly depend on me for support. It would not feel right for me or her. We also both know I would exhaust her emotionally if we did have an outside relationship and it would pretty much end in disaster, like other outside relationships I’ve had when I am too emotionally needy and greedy. She uses her non-client relationships to replenish herself which tends to get depleted from giving so much of herself during the working week. Her family, friends and partner give her back what her clients take out of her.

It was only when I saw her outside life from her point of view, not my own, that I realised she has emotional, psychological, physical and social needs as well that simply do not include replenishing herself from her paying clients.

Yes, it’s hard when you love someone that deeply to accept the boundaries of therapy. She cares about my life but doesn’t want to be in it.

Therapists who cross this boundary into a relationship with clients usually have unmet needs and unsatisfactory relationships, and an exploitive personality. In a client/therapist post therapy (or current therapy) relationship, the power differential is so horrendous; the client ends up getting used and abused and in many cases have simply added more trauma to their lives. It is rare that it works out into an egalitarian relationship that lasts.

This has been a long, hard lesson for me to learn but one my teacher/mentor/therapist has taught me with endless patience, kindness and understanding till I finally viscerally and internally understood that the ethics and boundaries of our relationship are always balanced in the direction of my mental health and well being.

I don’t think therapy should just be “terminated.” There are some instances where this might be necessary like if you run out of money and insurance benefits or in the case of the sudden serious illness, (or death!) of the therapist or if the therapist is about to retire. Or if you hate the therapist.

The best situation is to gradually space the sessions apart. So, eventually you are only seeing (or talking to) the therapist once or twice or 3 times a year for maintenance type sessions and they are available for you to contact in case you start to have mental health problems again. I am not sure how psychoanalysis works, but this seems to be the normal for cognitive-behavioral and related therapies (as well as drug therapy).

I like my therapist but I still see her as more of a consultant and as a doctor who is helping me with my problems and not as a “teacher or mentor or even a close friend” and this is how my therapist thinks of the relationship. The clinic she works out does “short-term” therapy and its quite expensive, (even if you do have good insurance) so the expectation is that you are not seeing the therapist regularly for years on end. In fact, I think they try to encourage you to work out problems for yourself and not grow to be dependent on the therapist.

I live in Australia where funding is different. Mostly it was private insurance till three years ago when a Medicare rebate was awarded to clinical psychologist. Our insurance pays for a psychologist regardless of the diagnosis. We don’t have to jump through hoops like people in the USA have to. It is all very easy to see a GP get a referral for medicare insurance and see a psychologist.

There were years when I did not see my clin psych and times when I saw her only a few times each year. I write mostly in retrospect, but I do see her when my life is not going the way I want it to. I have stuck with the same psych whereas others can therapy shop over many years. It is idiosyncratic and very personal and what suits one may not suit another.

We are not rich and it is affordable for us if we cut back on other things.

Thank you for the thoughtful post. I think the end of long term therapy work deserves a lot of attention and consideration. The way therapy ends is often a product of the therapists history of endings and the clients history of endings. Being mindful of both of these can help you to plan a good ending with a client. A good ending paves the way for a new beginning. The Gestalt therapy notion of unfinished business is important in this regard.

I am coming up to my last therapy session after 5 years. I know it is the right time to end and there are a few things I’m looking forward to in not seeing a therapist every week. However, I am very anxious about finishing. One of my main worries is actually about the final session. Will I cope with it? What will we do or say? Palmist don’t want to go to the last session because it feels easier not to have to face the goodbyes! Can anyone describe their last session or give me any ideas of what it could involve?