[MariaLucy]

I have been seeing him for six years. I have attachment/developmental problems. I attached to him in the first 18 months. We have been doing very deep work. I did not know how much trauma I carried ( i denied/suppressed most of it).
He announced he is leaving June 2017 because he wants to not re- new his contract.
He admits this is premature for me as I am not in a fit state to end therapy yet. But he is not only still leaving, he is now insisting that my sessions reduce in length and then I start losing sessions. I am in panic. Understatement. I feel like he is actually pinning me to the ground and punching me each time he says' we need to make this session shorter' or 'we need to start dropping sessions'. I have argued with him on this until the cows come home. he does not budge even when I tell him it is detrimental to me and damaging and that I sincerely need to manage reducing sessions times and number myself. I keep yelling at him that I need to have some control here, that I hate being pinned to the floor and punched in the face with him taking the control here. He keeps saying he is only asking us to discuss it but he asks me every single session and sometimes shortens the session anyway.
I would walk away but I am so attached to him. Like a child of about three. On a good day like a child of about 14.

[feralkittymom]

It's painful. Can you be willing to believe he is bringing it up every session because he sees you are not accepting the reality of it? In other words, accept that your feelings are very young, but not the entire reality of the situation? Maybe he would be open to using some of your time left (almost a year is a long time) to help you to transition to another T?

[bounceback]

you get a long time to process this at least. I know it is hard. I have lost many therapists over the years. Reducing sessions is kind of a good thing. I guess he is thinking by reducing sessions it will reduce your dependence on him. I had 10 months to process losing my last therapist before I moved and had between 3 weeks and more to process it with others. Use the time wisely to talk about your goals, what you learned, what you should work on and your feelings about the whole situation. Try not to leave nothing unsaid. I think it is a child feelings but in the long run i doubt if anything you do will change his mind. All you can do is grieve for the loss.

I'm so sorry! I know this must be very hard.

As tough as it is, it might be a good idea to look around for another therapist to transition to. You have a whole year to find someone awesome and transition at YOUR pace.

I've had to switch therapists a few times in the past, and I've found that the best way is to see two therapists a week... then start cutting back with the one you're transitioning away from and replace with the new therapist. As you mentioned, you have a year which means you can take it at whatever pace feels comfortable for you.

[kecanoe]

I had a t decide to retire who gave me about a year's notice. I found it devastating. I had been seeing him twice a week for 4 years and we were a long way from finished, which he admitted (like yours). I spent the next 6 months or so hating that he was retiring, going in each session and crying and feeling awful, was pretty consumed by the whole thing. Eventually he agreed with me that each session was just re-traumatizing me and that it made sense to just quit. I was seeing two other ts at the time and they were both also supportive of me quitting with the retiring t. I put my defiant teenage part in charge and quit.

It took me a while to recover. I think it was at least 6 months before I felt anything other than evil thoughts about him. I finally reached a place where I felt bad for him because the person he was grooming to take over the practice bailed on him.

I don't know if it would have been better to stay on with him or not. I replaced him with t3, who has been immensely helpful. She practices in an entirely different way and I am making more progress with her than I did with him. So from that point of view it was better to stop with the retiring t.

I wish I had something to offer to help you through this. But all I can say is that I understand how devastating it is.

I do agree that starting with a new t before you end with the retiring one is a good idea.

[Merecat]

How long/how often are you seeing him for just now and what is he suggesting you start reducing to? At the moment he says he just wants to discuss it and your reaction (feeling like you're being held down and punched in the head) suggests you don't want to hear/talk about it. So even having the conversation about the ending process is unbearable but it's part of his job to help you leave him so he needs to keep coming back to an ending process.

A year is a long time in some ways but will go quickly too so he is being responsible by keeping bringing things back to ending.

[MariaLucy]

thank you so much for your replies. You have all been very understanding. I talked to him today about my own time line of reducing or shortening sessions from now until next June when we end. I said I am away much of august and September which is true. So after that I will reduce my friday session down to less time. And then in Dec I will start reducing my Monday session. By April I will only see him once a week. end of June we finish. I have another two possible therapists in place and ready if I want to start working with them - they are private, he is free. I shall start seeing one of them in September to see if she will be a good person to transition to. I need more security and reassurance from him and today I was very open with him telling him that I know I am not a daughter to him but he is the nearest I ever had a to a loving dad and that I am a 'sort of something' to him, he loves me and I am in his heart and I love him so that means he is never 'not there' for me, he is going to feel there for me and that I can contact him sometime when I need to. He agreed with that and praised me for being able to get to that.
I am so fed of this wrangling that I did get very close to ending totally with him. Very close. But after six years work at twice a week, I don't want a catastrophic ending, from my rage self. I want to make this an amicable measured ending but with me in control.