Termination and abandonment: A key ethical distinction

For me this article epitomizes the danger faced by vulnerable clients. The client in the vignette is described in language that strikes me as objectifying and remote. Some of the reasoning is sound, but the therapist appears to be making decisions for the client, as if she were a child or a lab specimen. The language is also inordinately clinical and obsessively focused on concepts like "treatment" and "skills", suggesting a level of scientific rigor and control that is a bit delusional (based on my experience).

The central concern seems to be therapist liability. Questions of abandonment are framed as ethical concerns primarily. Whether the client experiences termination as abandonment or not is secondary.

This is relevant for me because my ex T decided unilaterally how termination would be carried out, what additional contact would be allowed, what could or could not be discussed, and finally that all contact would cease. And it was a disaster.