Sometimes I wonder if this sort of feeling isn’t rooted in a more fundamental existential pain. We are all essentially completely replaceable. If I ceased to exist tomorrow, someone else will replace me in my job; my partner will find another partner; someone else will take in my pets; my possessions will go somewhere else; my loved ones will be sad, but they’ll go on with their lives, and eventually most of them won’t even be sad anymore; etc. It makes sense that we want to feel indispensable to someone, but it isn’t generally true, not in therapy and not in life.

I don’t think that one’s T saying that you can’t be friends after therapy means that s/he doesn’t care about you. While some people can transition to being friends with an ex-T, I suspect that they’re in the minority, and that the safest, healthiest route for both client and T is for the relationship to end with the therapy. I feel sure that my T would tell me that we can’t be friends afterward, and I know that if I quit, I’d be replaced with another client. But I know that she does care about me.