[SarahSweden]

I grieve the end of my therapy and I constantly miss my therapist. What really confuses me is why I wasn´t given any termination sessions. It all seems so strange as every therapist knows how important the termination is.

I know my T didn´t want to end therapy but her supervisor and their organization put an end to it all when they found out my T had given me more sessions than she was allowed due to the organization policy.

I understand that was against the rules but what had it matter if they had given me like four sessions to terminate? It frustrates me that I don´t know if my actually T tried to get some termination sessions or if she just abided by what her supervisor decided.

I can´t understand how the supervisor could think an abrupt ending would be the right decision, if she at all thought about how I would feel. At the moment it just feels like everything that mattered was to prohibit my therapist to continue therapy with me.

Any thoughts about this?

[downandlonely]

It doesn't sound like the supervisor really cared about your feelings.

I'm sorry that happened to you.

[Deejay14]

Sarah not to diminish your feelings, but even if you had four termination sessions I think you may have felt the same way. It's just dragging out the inevitable. Have you tried reframing how you think about this event like thinking grateful because you got so many more sessions then you were supposed to. Sometimes small changes in our self talk can make a difference in our mood. Wishing you well.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. I agree I had still grieved even if I had gotten some termination sessions but at least me and my therapist had then had the chance to wrap things up and to meet instead of ending on the phone.

I´m grateful for what she did but at the same time she caused me a lot of pain that could have been avoided. For me it´s also important to know about the motivation behind the abrupt ending. If it was just an inconsiderate supervisor/organization or if something else lies behind it all.

I´m left in the therapy process but the supervisor and partly also my therapist acts like I had only gotten those limited sessions of brief counselling.


I could understand it more if the therapist had suddenly got fired or similar and couldn´t at all be present for termination sessions. But now I can´t understand how four or five sessions would have impacted their organization to such an extent that it was impossible for them to end it in a more proper way.

Originally Posted by Deejay14

Sarah not to diminish your feelings, but even if you had four termination sessions I think you may have felt the same way. It's just dragging out the inevitable. Have you tried reframing how you think about this event like thinking grateful because you got so many more sessions then you were supposed to. Sometimes small changes in our self talk can make a difference in our mood. Wishing you well.

[Ididitmyway]

There is nothing really to say here. I think, it's obvious that what happened was very unfair to you and inhumane. The supervisor and whoever else was making a decision didn't seem to care at all about how this would affect you.

I was once fired from an agency (my very first internship place) just because I set my boundary with one of my supervisors, who loved analyzing her interns in supervision. I refused to be analyzed and she got pissed and convinced the admin that they had to get rid of me. Anyway, long story short, the director of the agency gave me 3 weeks to wrap up my cases. So, each of my clients got 3 weeks to process unexpected termination that wasn't my fault or their fault. And, you know what? I thought that 3 weeks was an outrageously small amount of time for people to get a proper closure and that it was inhumane to force me to end my work with them just over 3 sessions.

You didn't get any opportunity to make a closure. None.

While I generally agree with Deejay that a few additional sessions, probably, wouldn't have made you feel much better and wouldn't have diminished your grieve, on some level, I think, being able to make some closure (as imperfect as it might've been) would've made it a little easier for you to accept the loss.

But, I also like the Deejay's idea of shifting your perspective a little. In the sense, to look at this situation as more of a "glass half-full" than a "glass half-empty" way. If you can see and appreciate the value of what you had received during your therapy with that woman more than you can see how she wronged you, that could allow you to see the bigger picture and to detach yourself to some extend from just one piece of it.

I know it is hard to shift perspective when the hurt is raw, and that's okay. It's okay to experience the sense of injustice done to you as long as you need to fill fully validated. But, while you are feeling all that hurt, it would still, I think, help to keep in mind that what you had received in therapy was needed and you wouldn't have received it if not for your therapist's actions, wrongful as they were.

Curse and blessing often come together and, in fact, can't be separated from one another. Sometimes, very painful life experiences are the "price" we pay for knowledge and lessons and good experiences that feed our hungry souls.

I know that almost every person, who has wronged me over the course of my life, knowingly or unknowingly, and every experience that has traumatized me also has contributed into my personal growth

[feileacan]

Originally Posted by SarahSweden

I´m grateful for what she did but at the same time she caused me a lot of pain that could have been avoided.

Do you really believe that the pain you are feeling could have been avoided? Let's imagine that she would have done as she was supposed to in the first place and gave you 20 or 30 (or whatever the accepted max was) sessions which also included 4 sessions for termination. Do you think you would still not feel hurt and would not complain that how she could terminate you while she knew that you clearly would need more time?

Somehow I just don't think that this pain could have been avoided and I don't want to express judgement whether this is good or bad.

Sarah, if you imagine that you were given those 4-5 termination sessions, how would you have used them? What would you have discussed or done? It is probably not very likely that the T would have given you more information that she'd already said. But in terms of focusing on you, what type of conversation would have helped? Would you have gone through the experience of your therapy in those sessions, what progress was made, what is it you struggle with and why? Or would you have focused it on the pain and the soon-to-be-lost relationship with the T? Is it possible that you could do something similar on your own, or perhaps on this forum?

Maybe that's actually what you have been doing already recently with these threads. I think it is good that you are doing this instead of avoiding your feelings. I admire people who take their time to really deal with sadness and process it for what it is - this tends to be very hard for me to do, I mostly avoid or minimize it and just want to move on. Of course often it only works on the surface and comes back later in forms that are much less healthy. I wish I could finally really learn from my mistakes in this area. So I totally understand that you are upset about not getting a chance to do something that, you think, might have helped to avoid this. I agree with others who suggest that most likely a few more sessions would not have prevented your pain too much, maybe just delayed it or perhaps given it a somewhat different perspective? Could you possibly find that perspective on your own?

Also, maybe I would try to stand back from this recent termination and its effects and bit and look at the larger picture. What I mean is that, reading all your threads, you very clearly tend to feel intense sadness and helplessness about many different situations in your life, including your therapy experiences. I also do not want to diminish your feelings and it is pretty much the nature of depression. What I am trying to say though is that perhaps, at least in part, it is more about your general, baseline state of mind and then you intensely infuse whatever happens in real life to you with these feelings. So there is always something to suffer about.

I'm not sure this perception is correct, just an idea, something I know well because I do it driven by my anxiety. It's like there is this ever-present underlying current of anxiety (which I think is largely physiological in my case) and my mind automatically tends to project it into many different things from my career, perspectives regarding many endeavors, health, body image, external expectations, performance etc etc. I am highly aware of this tendency but still, in the moment, it can often be very challenging to clearly recognize. I can get stuck in these anxious states, avoid dealing with what could truly help to alleviate it (dealing with practical problms actively), but typically letting this non-specific doomsday perspective get in the way and induce avoidance and distractions helps me nothing. At other times, I dive deeply into the anxious inner states as though understanding them better could make them go away eventually (this more when I was younger though). I really think many people handle chronic depression and low self-esteem similarly. I think if we are prone to these conditions (and struggling with them long-term pretty much shows that we are), the best is to accept this predisposition but try not to let it drive us all the time. In this sense, I agree with what the others said above about shifting perspective consciously.

[tomatenoir]

I don't really have any advice, but I do want to say I empathise.

A few weeks ago I abruptly quit therapy after a year of sessions, as my otherwise excellent therapist refused to hug me. Stopping was the right decision, but a week after I quit, I called my therapist to ask for a final session to put some closure to the relationship, which I was already devastated to lose. He refused. I found, and still find, his answer heartbreaking. I'm really confused and grieving for the loss of something that was very dear to me.

I honestly think the best thing to do in these situations is to try and decide what you can take forward with you - and that's what you got from therapy, not the therapist. What did your therapist help you with? What can you do to honour what you learned? What can you do to make sure your grief isn't pointless?

And if the person you need an ending from can't/won't give you one, make your own. No, it won't fix the supervisor's decision, but you can stop giving her hold over your feelings.

I think humans are wired to need ritual. I booked a single session with a random counsellor where I had a 'goodbye to therapy and all that' session. It's not the same, obviously, but it has helped. Perhaps you could do something to mark the end? Plan it out and treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

I'm sorry this happened to you. Loss is hard, no matter the shape it comes in.

[Fuzzybear]

I think that what happened to you was inhumane. I think that all therapists are very well aware of how important the termination process is. The therapist did appear to care though, which is more than can be said for some of them..

[here today]

Originally Posted by Fuzzybear

I think that what happened to you was inhumane. I think that all therapists are very well aware of how important the termination process is. The therapist did appear to care though, which is more than can be said for some of them..

I wonder if therapists really are aware of how inhumane sloppy/shoddy termination can be. That doesn't make it feel any better to the recipient, of course.

[saidso]

I went through something similar but different. Was in counselling with a low-fee agency and the counsellor advised that I needed to see her more frequently. Before I was seeing her fortnightly or three-weekly in order to space out the allocated sessions and that worked well for me.
As soon as I started seeing her weekly and our work intensified, she behaved oddly. She cancelled sessions without notice saying that she had taken on other (child protection) duties. I was angry because I didn't want to see her weekly and work more intensely and since she had suggested it, I thought it was irresponsible to then not be available for it. It sent the message that my deeper pain wasn't important.

Then, a month or two further on, I learned that she had been sick. Not serious, but some stomach disorder keeping her awake at night. She took time off sick and all my sessions were terminated.

I suppose that in some situations where a counsellor/ therapist has been so-called "unprofessional" towards a client, then it's embarrassing for the agency and the supervisor to come clean. But I still think it should happen.

Since then I've never gone back to low fee counselling. I feel that if there is an administrative, political, personal situation affecting an agency counsellor's ability to continue in her work - then the supervisor should sit down with the counsellor and client and talk openly and respectfully about the situation.

There is something weird about agencies that purport to "help" and then get in a muddle and can't talk honestly about it. Honesty always feels more respectful to me.

In a situation where a counsellor has done something construed as "unprofessional" towards a client, I can see that it would be difficult, embarrassing or legally dubious for a supervisor to come clean about it - but I still think it should be done as a healing of trust. Admitting what you have done badly, etc.

I don't understand your agency dealing with you in this way. Can you write to them and challenge it?

[Rive.]

I don't think she had any say in it. She already contravened their rule(s) by seeing you longer than she was allowed to.

In their eyes, you had more sessions than you were entitled to. And although the end of therapy was abrupt, they'd probably see it as you having had her so much longer that termination sessions were out of the question.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. It´s unbelievable what stories one get to hear when visiting PC and other forums. The other worse than the other, I refer to what you wrote about you being fired from your internship and that also affected all your clients!

As you worked within an agency one thinks they should know much better than acting in such a way. In my case I was given therapy within a church setting and they don´t have any experience from that. But still, only by sound reasoning they should have understood what situation they put me in.

In some time I can perhaps value what I got from therapy more than I am able to do at the moment. I have always been grateful and still am but there are now so many loose threads and a sudden loss that mind shifting isn´t possible.


As it hadn´t affected the supervisor nor the congregation to let my therapist give me a few sessions to wrap things up I feel the whole situation is very unfair.


I don´t know if my therapist found the whole situation so painful that she perhaps thought it was a releif that her supervisor just took this decision. But when I asked her what she had done if we had been in a private practise she answered that we had perhaps moved towards an end (slowly) or therapy had continued around new issues.

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

There is nothing really to say here. I think, it's obvious that what happened was very unfair to you and inhumane. The supervisor and whoever else was making a decision didn't seem to care at all about how this would affect you.

I was once fired from an agency (my very first internship place) just because I set my boundary with one of my supervisors, who loved analyzing her interns in supervision. I refused to be analyzed and she got pissed and convinced the admin that they had to get rid of me. Anyway, long story short, the director of the agency gave me 3 weeks to wrap up my cases. So, each of my clients got 3 weeks to process unexpected termination that wasn't my fault or their fault. And, you know what? I thought that 3 weeks was an outrageously small amount of time for people to get a proper closure and that it was inhumane to force me to end my work with them just over 3 sessions.

You didn't get any opportunity to make a closure. None.

While I generally agree with Deejay that a few additional sessions, probably, wouldn't have made you feel much better and wouldn't have diminished your grieve, on some level, I think, being able to make some closure (as imperfect as it might've been) would've made it a little easier for you to accept the loss.

But, I also like the Deejay's idea of shifting your perspective a little. In the sense, to look at this situation as more of a "glass half-full" than a "glass half-empty" way. If you can see and appreciate the value of what you had received during your therapy with that woman more than you can see how she wronged you, that could allow you to see the bigger picture and to detach yourself to some extend from just one piece of it.

I know it is hard to shift perspective when the hurt is raw, and that's okay. It's okay to experience the sense of injustice done to you as long as you need to fill fully validated. But, while you are feeling all that hurt, it would still, I think, help to keep in mind that what you had received in therapy was needed and you wouldn't have received it if not for your therapist's actions, wrongful as they were.

Curse and blessing often come together and, in fact, can't be separated from one another. Sometimes, very painful life experiences are the "price" we pay for knowledge and lessons and good experiences that feed our hungry souls.

I know that almost every person, who has wronged me over the course of my life, knowingly or unknowingly, and every experience that has traumatized me also has contributed into my personal growth

[Ididitmyway]

Reading through other comments made me think of the theme of "closure" that was very prominent for the most part of my life.

It was always important to me to make a proper "closure" with someone who hurt me. In that sense, therapy for me was no different than other life situations. Therapy termination was just another "closure".

At some point though, I decided to be brutally honest with myself and to ask myself whether it really was a "closure" I was looking for or a new "opensure". The thing is that the perfect closure for me was when two people can own up to their actions and recognize the effect it made on the other person, "forgive" each other, say good bye and move on with their lives. But, if it is possible for them to do that, if they own what they did, then there is no need to say good bye, isn't there? The the relationship has a new opening and it improves.

The whole reason why the real "closures" suck, why they are never sufficient and why they often don't happen at all is because one or two people are not in the place to see things from the other person's perspective and to take responsibility for their behavior.

That's how I stopped believing in "closures". For me now there is no such thing as external closure with anyone. Closure happens inside and it only happens when all the feelings about the rupture have been sufficiently processed and the experience has been integrated with the new meaning attached to it.

[Ididitmyway]

Originally Posted by SarahSweden

In some time I can perhaps value what I got from therapy more than I am able to do at the moment. I have always been grateful and still am but there are now so many loose threads and a sudden loss that mind shifting isn´t possible.

I completely understand and respect that. This thing just happened to you and everything is so raw right now that, energetically, you are not in the place to distance yourself emotionally to look at the bigger view. That's totally normal. I don't believe new perspectives should be forced or used as a way to suppress the feelings you are currently experiencing. Before one is ready to entertain a new perspective, the current one has to be given all the space it needs to be processed and understood.

[saidso]

Yes in private practice clients are treated differently. I did have a private practice therapist end with me and it was painful though not unexpected since... I didn't like her either. The pain got better a whole lot quicker because she was honest about how angry she felt with me... the pain got better in a few days.

[Fuzzybear]

To the OP - I’m not sure why anyone “should” be grateful when such inhumane “mistakes” are made.. but that’s me. Again, I’m sorry you’re experiencing this . It will get better, but on your schedule, not anyone else’s. Hugs

[saidso]

You got terminated on the phone! I only just read that - outrageous in my opinion.

[Anne2.0]

Clearly the higher ups or supervisors or whatever they were in the church/agency were not thinking of your best interests when they decided no more sessions. Even though she was a volunteer, she was effectively "fired" from the organization. Here in the U.S. there are specific state laws that govern employment that may impact whether a T can even speak to clients again.

My current T was employed by a private counseling group--which I never thought of as an issue until he decided to leave the practice and work for another (smaller) practice. When he gave them his 2 week notice they fired him and because of his contractual terms of employment, he wasn't allowed to contact his clients at all.

However, an administrator at the agency called me and told me that he suddenly quit and no they didn't know where he was going, would I please make an appointment with one of their approved counselors. I did not. I did not believe what they were trying to imply, that he would be so unprofessional he would not give his clients any warning at all before he was leaving. But I had his cell phone and I texted him, learned where he was going to be working in a few weeks and have seen him there ever since.

So I do not believe that administrators (I tend to not think any of them, in my experience, work in anyone's best interests but their own) much care about clients or what is best for them. The administrator at my T's former agency was not even a mental health professional, but some accountant type.

If things had turned out differently and I couldn't find my T after this administrative "termination," I would have been sad and upset about not having the closure that many people would want. So i think your reaction is normal and i hope you feel better soon.

[SarahSweden]

Yes, there´s a big difference between getting 20 sessions with like four termination sessions included and getting terminated abruptly. I didn´t get a warning of any kind and of course that becomes a shock. I had missed her even if we had had a proper termination but the pain I now feel hadn´t been there.

Originally Posted by feileacan

Do you really believe that the pain you are feeling could have been avoided? Let's imagine that she would have done as she was supposed to in the first place and gave you 20 or 30 (or whatever the accepted max was) sessions which also included 4 sessions for termination. Do you think you would still not feel hurt and would not complain that how she could terminate you while she knew that you clearly would need more time?

Somehow I just don't think that this pain could have been avoided and I don't want to express judgement whether this is good or bad.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. I think I should have been given some time to terminate as every client should if therapy is conducted in an ethical way. A termination with this T would have given us a chance to talk about what we had gone through during our sessions as one normally does. Also, an educated therapist knows how to end therapy to minimize the potential negative impact an ending can have, at least initially.


I had probably asked her some more questions and we had been able to talk more freely instead of now talking on the phone as she suggested.


Yes, among other things I try to process what happened by posting here on PC as it helps reading about people who went through similar situations. I could never bury my grief.


The pain caused by the abrupt ending per se could have totally been avioded if my therapist had either adhered to the session limit or if she had properly asked if she and I could extend therapy. She just kept going without firmly establishing she could.

I agree my life situation and also my depressed mode contributes to my now strong sadness and grief. At the same time I know how a proper termination is seen as very essential to therapy and by that my reactions are more or less just to expect.


I think it´s easy to fall back into known patterns of action as you describe about your anxiety. I can see my vulnerability from "outside" and understand I might react more strongly to this than the average person. But I think grief has it´s own pace, I can distract myself and I have times I don´t think about this of course but grief is still not something to fix by using some kind of tool box.

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia

Sarah, if you imagine that you were given those 4-5 termination sessions, how would you have used them? What would you have discussed or done? It is probably not very likely that the T would have given you more information that she'd already said. But in terms of focusing on you, what type of conversation would have helped? Would you have gone through the experience of your therapy in those sessions, what progress was made, what is it you struggle with and why? Or would you have focused it on the pain and the soon-to-be-lost relationship with the T? Is it possible that you could do something similar on your own, or perhaps on this forum?

Maybe that's actually what you have been doing already recently with these threads. I think it is good that you are doing this instead of avoiding your feelings. I admire people who take their time to really deal with sadness and process it for what it is - this tends to be very hard for me to do, I mostly avoid or minimize it and just want to move on. Of course often it only works on the surface and comes back later in forms that are much less healthy. I wish I could finally really learn from my mistakes in this area. So I totally understand that you are upset about not getting a chance to do something that, you think, might have helped to avoid this. I agree with others who suggest that most likely a few more sessions would not have prevented your pain too much, maybe just delayed it or perhaps given it a somewhat different perspective? Could you possibly find that perspective on your own?

Also, maybe I would try to stand back from this recent termination and its effects and bit and look at the larger picture. What I mean is that, reading all your threads, you very clearly tend to feel intense sadness and helplessness about many different situations in your life, including your therapy experiences. I also do not want to diminish your feelings and it is pretty much the nature of depression. What I am trying to say though is that perhaps, at least in part, it is more about your general, baseline state of mind and then you intensely infuse whatever happens in real life to you with these feelings. So there is always something to suffer about.

I'm not sure this perception is correct, just an idea, something I know well because I do it driven by my anxiety. It's like there is this ever-present underlying current of anxiety (which I think is largely physiological in my case) and my mind automatically tends to project it into many different things from my career, perspectives regarding many endeavors, health, body image, external expectations, performance etc etc. I am highly aware of this tendency but still, in the moment, it can often be very challenging to clearly recognize. I can get stuck in these anxious states, avoid dealing with what could truly help to alleviate it (dealing with practical problms actively), but typically letting this non-specific doomsday perspective get in the way and induce avoidance and distractions helps me nothing. At other times, I dive deeply into the anxious inner states as though understanding them better could make them go away eventually (this more when I was younger though). I really think many people handle chronic depression and low self-esteem similarly. I think if we are prone to these conditions (and struggling with them long-term pretty much shows that we are), the best is to accept this predisposition but try not to let it drive us all the time. In this sense, I agree with what the others said above about shifting perspective consciously.

[Fuzzybear]

I think - my opinion - this termination on the phone was unethical and I think your reaction is “normal” - but even if your reaction isn’t what the “average” client might have.. you deserve the space, especially the innner space, to process your feelings. I agree that it’s much healthier to process and express this pain than to minimise/avoid it. I’m sending hugs

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. It sounds very harsh what your therapist did to you, not agreeing to a final session. It seems he kind of wanted a revenge for you ending therapy.

I´m in a state where I just grieve and I don´t have the energy to look for another counsellor who could talk with me about the ending. I think grief has it´s own pace and perhaps I´ll find something useful in this in the future.

Originally Posted by tomatenoir

I don't really have any advice, but I do want to say I empathise.

A few weeks ago I abruptly quit therapy after a year of sessions, as my otherwise excellent therapist refused to hug me. Stopping was the right decision, but a week after I quit, I called my therapist to ask for a final session to put some closure to the relationship, which I was already devastated to lose. He refused. I found, and still find, his answer heartbreaking. I'm really confused and grieving for the loss of something that was very dear to me.

I honestly think the best thing to do in these situations is to try and decide what you can take forward with you - and that's what you got from therapy, not the therapist. What did your therapist help you with? What can you do to honour what you learned? What can you do to make sure your grief isn't pointless?

And if the person you need an ending from can't/won't give you one, make your own. No, it won't fix the supervisor's decision, but you can stop giving her hold over your feelings.

I think humans are wired to need ritual. I booked a single session with a random counsellor where I had a 'goodbye to therapy and all that' session. It's not the same, obviously, but it has helped. Perhaps you could do something to mark the end? Plan it out and treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

I'm sorry this happened to you. Loss is hard, no matter the shape it comes in.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. Yes, that what´s so strange in this as her supervisor who ended it all knows about this as well, how important a proper termination is.

It seems her supervisor and the organization in some way wanted to "punish" my therapist for acting beyond their policy but what they did was just harming me, not my therapist.

I find it confusing that my therapist during our time together said that I could continue with her as long as I needed, that therapy was a "safe harbour" and that she could plan her own week. None of this seems to be correlated to reality as this very abrupt ending now occured.

Originally Posted by Fuzzybear

I think that what happened to you was inhumane. I think that all therapists are very well aware of how important the termination process is. The therapist did appear to care though, which is more than can be said for some of them..

[saidso]

I totally agree with both things you wrote above here: they wanted to punish her but harmed you instead - not good.
It is totally confusing when someone tells you therapy is a "safe harbour" then makes it unsafe. I went through that and would not go back to therapy with an agency because the management hierarchy seem to be unaccountable.

Can you write them a letter simply saying what you wrote above? You don't have to do that if it's too painful, but if something is wrong sometimes it feels ok to speak up and ask for an apology.