[mommyof2girls]

I wanted to know is it possible to be friends with an ex therapist? I ended our sessions about 1 month ago, and I really would like to keep in touch with him. Is there a timeframe one must wait?

[Elysium]

Um....I'm not sure if there is a "legal" time frame, but it would depend on what the State laws are surrounding the ethics in the situation. I believe that it is generally frowned upon in the Psychiatric/Psychology communities to enter into any type of personal relationship with a client, even if they are an ex-client.

I have heard from some general readings on the subject that if a practitioner chooses to develop a personal relationship with an ex-client that the suggested time frame between termination of the therapist-client relationship to the beginning of any type of personal relationship should be about two years....but I don't know if there are any hard core rules about that.

Generally speaking though, to ask your ex-therapist to have a personal relationship with you puts them in kind of an awkward situation. You are asking them to violate their ethics, and to deviate from standard practice that is considered healthy, and you are asking them to, in a way, sell out their integrity as a T. This is just my opinion...but I don't think it's fair. It's asking a lot of someone, just because you want to be friends. This is not a judgement, but it sounds a little selfish. Why would you want your T to sacrifice his/her integrity in that way?

T's are T's; we benefit from the therapeutic relationship while we have them, and then we at some point move on.