How to stop

I think you're describing it as more black and white than it is.

We have no idea whether the therapist attempted to help her gain those skills at all or not during the therapy to date. We have no idea of the circumstances of the therapy, the work that was being done on the client's issues, the clients' needs during that period and how they may or may not have shifted over time. And it certainly was not cold turkey.

The therapist just replied to the client's email yesterday- so obviously, all out of session contact has not stopped. And the decrease in out-of-session communication happened over a period of time. The OP also stated there was occasional out of contact session at points during their prior posts even after the therapist said he couldn't be her sole support, in addition to seeing the therapist in person twice a week, which was not their initial frequency but something they switched to in the past couple years to give her more structured support.j

You say he decided he's "done enough" but what we get from what the OP has shared rather, is that he found that the out-of-session contact was not leading to progress.

I believe there's room to find the truth of the matter in the middle, always mindful of the tremendous amount of information that we'll never have. Not to say it doesn't hurt or the therapist is blameless, but that things are not so arbitrary.

I hope you can find some peace OP, whether it's with this therapist, working through the rupture, or finding another therapist with a different approach, and of course you can certainly consider reporting this therapist if the circumstances you've experienced show him to have acted negligently/unethically.

I completely agree. I am utterly baffled by the fact that this T let this all go on for years. I would think that after a couple of weeks of receiving daily emails from client, T would have realized the client needed to learn healthier ways to self-regulate. Because T allowed the daily emails to go on for years, that right there suggests to me that no other coping skills were taught. If by chance other coping skills were taught, it appeared as though they did not work since nothing changed, which indicates to me T should have come up with alternative working solutions for client (ie. referring client to another T, outpatient treatment, whatever the situation may have called for).

To make matters worse for this client, T allows this extreme dependency to go on for years. Then T suddenly decides that it's not working so he starts to lessen his responses to client, leading to a complete cut-off within a matter of weeks. As if all of the sudden after 5 years, client is miraculously going to be okay despite this new, added feeling of abandonment?

Based on what info the op has given, this T screams unethical incompetence to me. In addition to his unethical behavior and incompetence, it seems like there is an abuse of power going on here also. I realize I do not know all of the facts, but just going off of the op's posts, I'd report this ****** to the ethics board asap.

To fuzzball541- I can't know the depths of your pain with this. But what I do know is that this is absolutely not your fault!! I know it's not the same, but you have good support in us PC'ers.