I left my first therapist after being with her close to a year, and we were not on bad terms. She really wasn't helping me anymore and I had come to believe I had exhausted her skills. I didn't intend to terminate therapy with her, I just ended up not going back to see her. It was totally not deliberate! In retrospect, I wish I had terminated deliberately and had a last session with her. This would have been the considerate and adult thing to do. But I was pretty self-absorbed back then and this never occurred to me. I'm also very conflict avoidant, so if I had known I was going to terminate I probably wouldn't have wanted to have a last session. I think I have grown a lot since then, with the help of T2, and I would now be able to have a termination session with her and even welcome one. I would want to use it as a time to sum up our work together, reflect on accomplishments, what I still had left to work on, and what my next steps were. It would be a chance to say thank you to her. And it would give her a chance to give me some observations on myself and perhaps some pointers for the future. I just feel more mature now, like I could do this. It seems immature and inconsiderate how I just left her before. I know this is different from what you are proposing, ReadytoStop, but this is how I would handle it now that I am older and wiser and not as self-absorbed as i was back then. You do not seem that way to me, Readytostop. You are being very thoughtful about this. (Maybe the depression contributed to my acting that way, who knows.)

A couple of years ago I saw a family therapist together with my daughter, and when we decided to stop seeing him, I really wanted to do it "right", to model that behavior for my daughter. So we had a really nice last session. The T was kind of surprised we were going to terminate, but he worked with us to have a good last session, sum up progress, say what we had each liked about working with each other, etc. It was good! Made me wish even more I hadn't left my first T without a word.

With my current T, I would never leave him without processing it together with him, and I could see us taking a few sessions for that. We are too close for me to slight him by leaving without a word. Our relationship is real and I would want to honor that and our work together. It would be a horrible thing to just never show up again like I did with my first therapist. I'm a lot closer to my current T, plus I just didn't know any better back then.

Good luck with whatever you decide.