hankster, your post made me smile, thank you.

I am aware that I'm kind of all over the place with this, and I imagine that probably looks really scattered or contradictory to anyone reading my posts, but processing my feelings about various courses of action really helps me sort out what is coming from reasonable mind, from emotion mind, or from both (wise mind).

I do know that DBT is over for me, at least for now, at least with this therapist. What I want, and what I need, now is first to process my feelings about what has gone on between us for the past month. I need to process that stuff with her, and I don't know if I will be able to. If she's as emotionally reactive as she was last week, no way. But maybe she has centered herself, I don't know.

Beyond that, I want to spend some time looking back at the progress I've made, talk about some of the high points of our time together, and discuss my future plans as well as any guidelines for continued contact with her. I want to thank her whole-heartedly for the help she has given me, the times she has been there, for listening to and believing and validating my story. I want to tell her that I won't ever forget her, and that I hope she won't ever forget me. I want to ask her what she learned from working with me, and I want to acknowledge that I have been impossibly difficult at times and to thank her for hanging in with me as long as she did.

I just don't think all that can be accomplished in 2 or 3 sessions. I think I want to ask to see her 3 times in Dec, twice in Jan, and one final time in Feb. I normally see her every week, so this tapering off feels much better than just suddenly stopping. I'm going to propose no between-session contact during that time, unless it's for scheduling or whatever. And, maybe the discussion will go faster and easier than I think. In that case, I could be done sooner than Feb. I want to keep my options as open as possible.

Of course I don't know that she will agree to any more than 3 sessions, but at least I will have had a chance to figure out what really needs to be said before I am done.