Hey everyone. I was wondering about how you feel about the prospect of one day losing your T. Does it bother you? How do you cope if so?

I brought this up in my session today. I told my T it's really hard to let myself get attached to him because I know I'm going to lose him one day. I've been in therapy for 1.5 years and have a long way to go, but one day I'll be done with therapy. He's a real person, not a blank slate, and he's the first safe attachment I've ever had in my life really. It's painful knowing that, ultimately, I'm part of his job and he's not someone who's in my life.

My T said that, whatever happens, in a way he will always be with me and I will always be with him. That he will never terminate me without warning (he's in private practice so in control of this himself) and he expects we will spend a minimum of one year preparing for the end of therapy.

He's assured me that, if he dies unexpectedly, someone will tell me - but I wanted to know what will happen if he dies after I leave therapy, will someone let me know, will I be able to go to his funeral, or will I potentially find out he's died, I didn't know and I've missed his funeral? He said he might need to leave instructions to inform me, and that this might be part of what we agree when I leave therapy.

He also said all relationships involve loss, whether someone leaves or someone dies - every relationship in life comes to an end. But therapy is different because you know it's going to end from the start. I figure that my therapy age (as opposed to, say, a mental age) is pretty young right now, and one day I might be ready to fly the therapeutic nest. But right now it feels like I'm being expected to get attached to someone who I need to get attached to, but who is going to leave me, and that's painful, and there's no way to make it not painful.

So I guess I just wondered if anyone else has any feelings on this, and how you've coped with it.