Hi, I wondered if anyone here having finished therapy can tell me how they knew it was time to end?

I think I'm asking because for the first time, thoughts of therapy ending one day are now entering my mind, and not in such a scary way.

Maybe its different things to different people?

[EJ711]

Mouse,

It sounds to me like you might be ready. What does your therapist say? Have you asked her/him?

Hugs,

EJ

[Sarah116]

Talk with your Therapist and yourself.

I stopped therapy a few years ago when I had nothing to say! I ended up asking her how her week went!

A few months ago I started going through a rough time so I started back with her. I'm trying to get stable again.--Suzy

Thanks for the replys but no one has answered my question as it was poised..."if someone had finished therapy and could tell me how it was for THEM" I know I can talk to myself and my therapist that wasn't the question...

Guess I don't understand your question--sorry--I just didn't feel the need anymore. My life was in balance & moving along smoothly. I had no "issues" to discuss or resolve.--Suzy

[Perna]

My T and I terminated the end of June, 2005. I had been seeing her since February 1996. In the beginning of March of 2004 she told me she was going to retire. She explained she would renew her license in June of 2004 but not when it ran out end-of-June 2005. She laid out the two big multi-week (like 4-6 weeks) breaks she'd be taking in the period and so we shifted our emphasis onto terminating with the 16 months to get it to work well.

Before then I had gotten comfortable with thinking about it, as you are, without too much panic :-) but it's different thinking about it versus actually having it happen. You might want to talk with your T about how much time you might want between deciding to terminate and terminating. Doesn't mean you have to actually set a date when you talk but would be a "real" subject about it and help you get an idea of how you really feel, get it out of your head into the consciousness of both of you?

I spent the entire year+ having to calm myself down by reminding myself it wasn't "today," that there was still plenty of time. It took a few months (and her longest absence of a couple or three months I think) before I began to shift into thinking about being "alone" and what life would be like and what I would think about and do, etc. It was a little hard to separate out myself from therapy. In the last few months of therapy I joined a women's group, a once-a-month thing and through the period we were terminating I started/tried a few things "on my own." For the first time ever I took a vacation/was away for a week and missed therapy/cancelled my session.

In 2005 I started thinking about what I was going to do after therapy. I was very aware of how I felt when she was away, I kept a detailed journal the last time she was away so long. I worked with myself on how to feel better therapy days (they would "surprise" me; I'd be agitated and my body would want to go get in my car and leave to drive to therapy :-) and I started noting ALL the ways I helped myself every day, at work, by myself, during "situations"/problems, etc. I was surprised at how well I took care of myself. I looked at tiny changes in attitudes, tiny problems/feelings bad and how they resolved themselves. I worked hard by myself!

In therapy my attitude subtly shifted to being able to discuss in detail what was happening during the therapy session; my T would say something and I would hear it 97% and respond right then with at least 82% :-) of me. We didn't work in such "detail" about the past anymore, it was all what I was doing/thinking right then and future plans.

My husband was thinking about retiring and I had only been working to pay for my therapy (out-of-pocket) and I didn't like my job anymore (had been there 7+ years and was now part-time) and there was a lot of change in my real life. I got my husband house hunting in an area nearer his work where he could work part-time after retiring if he wanted. When we actually terminated, I was busy looking for a house, quitting my job, selling one house, buying another, moving, etc. for 3+ months and I'd bought my husband a trip to Europe for Christmas the year before for our anniversary in September. So, I kind of overwhelmed therapy termination with other things :-)

I'm fine now. When I moved it was a bit iffy and I got an online therapist that I e-mailed 8-10 times, I was having a bit of trouble with being in a new house, new world, new everything and not knowing anyone or how it was all going to come out :-) It was a bit scary because I was doing so much.

The best thing I did was "plan ahead." I came up with several things to look forward to/work on (my schooling plan) and getting myself out of a couple "bad" situations (my old house we'd been in 20+ years and my work I no longer loved). Basically I spent the year between when we set and date and actually terminated "practicing" setting my own goals and getting my head out of therapy where it had been most of my life. I got out into the "real" world more, worked on hard but practical problems (reservations for people to come measure windows/do window treatments in the new house, hired someone to come help me move/plan a huge yard sale over 6 weeks or so, dragged my husband to pick out furniture at one store to have them deliver from the other, near my new house an hour away, etc.). My husband was still working so a lot of moving and organizing fell to me. I had to hire junk haulers to clean out my basement, old rugs, miscellaneous broken down beds/couches, etc. We were moving into a much smaller house and the whole "figuring out" what to take, sell on eBay, trash, replace and how to do that fell on me.

Time was my best friend. I gave myself time and permission to be scared, throw out, get additional help, etc. and tried to pace myself. There was the day I went to the emergency room in an ambulance when my asthma got me as my moving/yard sale helper and I were doing too much 20-year-old dust stirring up (and we'd gotten a brand new air conditioner for the old house that was much better so it pulled up 20+ years worth of dust into the air too) and there were days that were fun. I had "College Hunks Hauling Junk" http://www.1800junkusa.com/ come to take away all the stuff of a zillion years of living and that was very liberating, seeing empty rooms in the house and anticipating the "new" house, all clean and organized.

The more specific you can get about what you want to have accomplished and what is standing in your way, the better you can figure out when you're ready to terminate and work toward it, I think. It shouldn't be a sudden thing, here this week, gone the next :-) and I got a lot of "leverage" reminding myself that "the day" hadn't come yet and I still had time to work. But instead of trying to pull away from the day like I use to with my T's vacations, I used the time until then better. Knowing I was able to and was using the time right in front of me well was the best gift therapy/termination gave me.

Perna, Thank you that was useful hearing how it was for you!...I think I may start to keep a written record on ways that I have helped myself during any given day :-)

I've noticed that we (my T and I) are talking more about the "here and now" rather then the past also....

cheers

[Perna]

Overlapping stuff is very good too. If you decide on a date, think of a "project" that starts before the end of therapy and continues on after that's all "yours." You can talk about the beginning of it while still in therapy and then transition to still having it afterwards. Planning a big trip for a couple months after therapy terminated was great for me. My school plans (still ongoing) were helpful too and I have a major hobby interest I have plans to travel for -- it's great to have things to pull you "forward."

I had a couple little routines for when I was in therapy, for the drive to/from each session which was over an hour each way. I moved around the routines so they weren't just for therapy and added a few on other days that weren't related to therapy.