How does T end your session?

My T simply stops when the time is up. No warning. She has sometimes cut me in the middle of a paragraph. So I've got into the habit of keeping an eye on the clock.

But I hear that some Ts are skilled at winding down so that the topic and the session end at the same time.

How is it for you?

My current T is usually good about giving us a 'warning' before time is up.

I've had T's that weren't so great. Kinda like, "Oh! Times up!" It's like... Well, crap. Guess I'll bandage myself up as I walk out the door!

Most of the time, I wind down with my clients, warning that we only have a couple minutes left. I have some clients, though, that tend to spew at the end of a session and it's hard to get a warning in.

mine used to tell me when we were getting close to being out of time so i could wrap it up or end early if i wanted to. if we were in the middle of something really important, shed let us go over. sometimes i would cut things short if we went over in previous sessions

My T has a knack of finding a natural place in the conversation to conclude and says "is it okay if we end there?" We usually chat a few more minutes, wrap up, arrange our next appointment etc, and at some point I hand my money over. Then she walks me out, and I thank her as we say goodbyes at the door.

I think I'd be a little upset if she abruptly cut me off in the middle of me saying something...

Mine will say right at the top of the hour, "We have to stop," but then keeps right on talking. I tend to take that as a 2-3 minute warning. We normally run 5-10 minutes over (15-20 a couple of times), but due to my work schedule, I'm usually the last client of the day, so I think she's a little lax with me.

My T is very mindful of the time....He sometimes stops the conversation at a convenient point and asks that we reflect on important parts of the session because we only have a few minutes left....other times, when there isn't a good stopping point, he'll pick up his appointment book to write in my next session (I have standing appts. each week), which indicates to me that our time is about up....

I sometimes tell him, "Do you think that by writing in your book and getting up to walk to the door, that I'm just going to get up and leave? What if I just sit here and refuse to go?"....I'm typically joking and just walk to the door...but a couple of times, I've tested it for a few seconds....LOL

My T usually makes some kind of comment about winding down or wrapping things up. She will usually ask me what I want to take with me from the session and we spend a few minutes talking about that. If it's been a particularly emotional session (like the last one was), she'll ask me if I'm okay to drive, or ask me to email her an update later.

My T is very good about not just ending abruptly. I also tend to keep an eye on the clock, because I don't want to get in to something deep just before the end of session, and then have to sit with that all week. I've learned to try and bring up difficult things within the first half hour of the session, so that I can deal with the emotions with my T's help, rather than having to leave and deal with it on my own.

There have been times, though, that I really resist ending the session...there have been times when I've just wanted to curl up in a corner of her office and stay there for another hour or so.

My T and I usually talk until we're both completely exhausted...and then one of us says something like "Oh man! Its LATE! We better get going in a few minutes." Then 20 minutes later we say something like, "We REALLY need to get going...its late." Then eventually we get wrapped up, we are both horrible about time. And she says something like "Well THAT went by too fast." Then we walk to the door, chit chat a little bit more about something fun, and eventually make it out the door with a hug

We end by making an appointment for next time. My T will say "we should schedule for next time..." or he will just get up and go to his desk to get his appointment book. Towards the end of the session he stops responding to anything "new" I might bring up, like a new topic cannot be introduced with only a few minutes left. He's never said this, but he doesn't respond, so it must be his rule, LOL. Sometimes he'll say let's pick up on that next time (but we never do). I also tend to not want to introduce anything big and hard if we have less than 20 minutes because I don't want to get stuck with "no time left" on something super important. When I have introduced a big topic with too little time left, I leave feeling very dissatisfied, so I have learned from making that mistake.

I usually end the appointment by standing up and paying her and walk out. If I (very rarely) do not notice the time is up, the t will say something like "we have to end for now" or something like that and then I stand up, pay her and walk out. We used to sort of banter as I was leaving, but since she humiliated me, I do not engage with her like that anymore.

Sometimes the t I see will say this sort of thing and then never follow up - it really pisses me off. Particularly when she says specifically that she will do something. I mean seriously - take a note that is actually useful.

My t is really good about keeping track of the time, and knowing how long it's going to take me to put myself back together and walk out the door (but then, I have been seeing her for 5 years, so she should know me by now).
She's really good at helping me get myself back together. So once that happens, we walk out and I go to scheduling and am on my way till next week

I've just noticed lately that she will sometimes (or I only notice sometimes?) kind of wrap up our session by commenting on the primary underlying theme of what we've talked about. The problem is that I don't notice until after the session, when I realize I didn't pick up on it. Sometimes I notice the clock and it's at a good place to stop, other times I'm oblivious to the time and she'll say "Well, we have to stop here". That used to make me feel so humiliated, early in therapy! But it is just something comfortable now, although I may be wishing for more time.

she says, "we have to stop for today." and we confirm the next appt. and theres some chatter as she walks me out. she's never cut me off mid sentence and usually i watch the clock too...

i tend to give a 10-15 minute cue, asking how the client would like us to spend the last 10-15 of session...if we are deep in conversation, i let the thought get finished...at the end i give assignments. i work inpatient/residential though, and also have a bad habit of going over time!

mine says "well we need to end in a few minutes" or some variant of that if in-person session,and then i usually pretend i didn't hear her and continue speaking or hold tighter to her. if it's a phone session she says that or "well i am going to say goodbye now," at which point I curse the medium because a cell phone prevents me from hugging her to prolong the session just a couple more minutes...

oh she also sometimes says "we can talk about this more at the next time.." or "we need to end now " and i scowl at her for being rude! many times my sessions have gone over many minutes so I can't complain really. But I mean, of course I am unhappy about having to leave T!

My T sort of helps tie things up toward the end. If it is a particularly intense session, he spends time being sure I'm ready to leave. I've never found the ends of sessions to be abrupt.

my T has many ways of stopping .i guess because i have developed many ways of being in session.if i am in a place that i cant come up with words or speak and have spent the session silent,she will end in 45 min but will give me plenty of warning if i want to talk by saying we have this amount of time left are you sure this is how you want your session to go?then she will say it is time to stop for today

if i am able or willing to speak she will usually go 50 min before she says it is time to stop. she will usually start to say some light chatter and send me on my way .a lot of times i am still worked up.

if we are doing something ,like art or playing a game or something she will start cleaning up and i know it is close to the end of session.the same rules of time seem to apply here also 45 min if i am not willing to talk 50 min if i am.

my T doesn't have a clock that i am able to see she keeps it on the table facing her and i don't wear a watch(although have been thinking of getting one do to this)so she is in complete control of the time.

for a long time i never noticed the 45 min and 50 min difference until one day i happened to look at the clock in the reception area and saw it was a 45 min session and thought it strange because i thought it was suppose to be a 50 min session.so i kept looking as i leave.i noticed when i am able to deal and talk it is 50 min.now i kind of use the time she spends with me as a kind of gage as to how well i think she thought i did in T that day.45 min not so good 50 min i must have not been so boring i know it is kind of strange.

I make my t's job of ending the session easy because I am a clock watcher and I get very fidgety when the ending time is near. T, on the other hand, doesn't manage time well, and occasionally will run over in the session before mine, which stresses me out very much!

"time to go- get out!"

nah she gives me the 7 minute warning...or what ever time limit she sets..."well we have to end soon..."

I noticed towards the end of the session he looks at his phone. I usually go quiet and let him lead from there. He usually wraps the session up, and schedules my next apt. I think if he actually gave me a time warning I would totally shutdown, but thats just me.

T will say "we have to end soon" and we spend a few minutes wrapping up what we're doing. He gets the receipt from his desk and sits with me on the couch while he fills it out, we look to see when my next session is, I put my shoes on, we hug and that's it.

Probably 80% of the time, *I* end the session. He always get me grounded before the end, and when I start noticing the time, I kind of get to a point where I feel like I can stop and I say "Okay" and then we do the whole receipt/appt thing. It's ALWAYS 5 - 10 mins after the session is "supposed" to end...and I often wonder what would happen if I didn't say "Okay" and end the session myself. Would it go on forever?!

i am so worried about going over that my eyes are always on the clock. i beat her to it every time, because i don't ever want to hear her say 'we have to stop.' i think i would take it personally, and think she doesn't really care about me, so i pretend she would never say that, but actually i never let it get to that point to know for sure

ha, funny thing... as i'm writing this, i see the connection to other areas of my life, i.e. dating. i "reject" other people first so that they can't "reject" me... hmmm...

along the same lines, i've noticed (with green envy) that my t walks out the person before me all the way down the hall to the front door of the building, laughing and talking the whole way. she's never walked me out are there any good reasons why she'd walk people out and not others? or, a reason at least that doesn't make me think she likes everyone better than me? she doesn't even get up out of her chair when i leave... any thoughts?

well the clock is out of my view i guess its behind me somewhere, i usually use to bug her and say is time up, lol now she will just tell me so i will see you next week and i go downstairs to the receptionists and make an appt my t is not a private t . also she is very good at unwinding the session if we are talking about trauma. and if i start to talk about an important topic she will let me know that the session is not over but that there is no time to address the subject of that nature and she does not want me to leave her office in a state of emotion.

I finally got the one I see to stop trying to walk me to the door. I mean it is only about 5 feet away and I can make there alone. I do not like the t to be physically near me.

Also she is total crap at winding down or grounding or whatever. I usually leave a lot worse (angry, frustrated, confused about how it was supposed to help) than when I went in.

My situation is perfect for me. There is a clock on the wall right behind T and I can monitor carefully my session. I know what I want to talk about and I decide if I want to stay on topic or switch to another topic depending on the time frame. But I can do all of that because I'm very aware of the time. I like that. I would hate not knowing where we are time-wise in a session. It would be too hard for me to not know how much time I have to complete my thoughts. Also, I would hate having my T tell me it's time to quit. I like being in control of the ending. So, I am the one who begins the winding down and when it's that moment to quit, I get up and leave. Very easy, very painless.