[garden gal]

I've been seeing my therapist for almost four years... over time, we have built up a great deal of trust, and he knows more about me than just about anybody else. He has helped me to get through some incredibly difficult times. He can also make me laugh when I'm feeling awful, which is a rare thing to find in a therapist. I found out last week that he is retiring soon, and I cried for 6 hours straight. I'm having a really hard time facing the reality that he is soon going to be completely out of my life. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to trust someone again in the same way. My grief about his retirement seems to have triggered a bad depressive episode, and I have been feeling pretty horrible... it looks like I'm going to have to take at least a short medical leave from work. Has anybody out there had to deal with this before? How did you get through it?

[Kiya]

((((((Garden Gal)))))))
I'm sure this is hard for you - I'd cry 6 hours straight too How much time do you still have with T? Was this sudden? Do you have time to work through this? Does he have ideas for your transition? My T is retirement age and I think about it all the time. Often i ask or tell her that she better not be retiring anytime soon.
My dr just moved away and I think i cried for a month everytime I thought of her or heard her name. It is still painful - like a death - and almost easier for me to think of her as that rather than around but not around me. weird, i know.
It is grief at its core - something hard to walk through when you have a strong connection. I'm sorry you have to go through this!!!
keep writing!

[Perna]

Make a plan, it will help a little bit as a distraction, as well as being practical. Picture yourself further out and how well you will be doing and some of what "new" you will be doing (what are your goals for 5 years from here, for example). Ask your T is you can send him a letter in a year (or 6 months) telling him how you are doing and come up with something you would like to be doing at that time to tell him about (a future goal).

If you have enough time, get a new T and start seeing them for the last session or two so you overlap a bit and can discuss how you feel you'll do with the new T, etc. as you discuss what you learned with the old. In other words, kind of bridge the two experiences. Write out now what you are working on, what is still hard for you with this T, as well as the various things you have learned and resolved. Try to get an overall picture of your life from the last 10 years and forward through the next 10. Use the fact that it's 2010 and remember how things were as well as how you'd like them to be and what you are doing to get there.