Should I act on this desire or not....?

How can one be attached to a deceased T...? We stopped working together about a year ago and she died in February this year. But I still miss her more than is healthy I think. I have tried to process her loss with 3 different people and I still feel as bereft as I did when I first learned of her death.

I try to remember and put into practice the things she taught me when I'm feeling mega stressed, depressed or suicidal. I'm grateful that she came into my life when she did and that I had that time with her... but dammit, I still miss her like crazy and am constantly comparing other Ts I've 'trialled' and no one ever matches up.

I realise I could be idealising her memory and thinking of her in more positive terms than is warranted, but even so. I didn't imagine she would still be taking up such a large space in my head all these months later.

It doesn't help that her son is also a T and I reached out to him when I first learned of her death. He appreciated the gesture and sent me a lovely email back. However, I'm now finding that I really want to reach out to him again, but it would now be more for my benefit than his, and I'm not at all certain this would be either ethical, moral or appropriate. I don't want to upset or offend him and for this reason have refrained from contacting him again so far.

The therapist-client relationship being the unique one that it is, means that obviously I do not know anyone else who knew her. Normally when someone dies, there are family or friends to talk to about that person. When a client loses their therapist in such sad circumstances, there is no one who knew that person to speak to about it, and I am really struggling with that. If I had known who her Supervisor was, I would have approached them, but of course I didn't have that information either.

I don't even know what I am hoping to gain from such contact. Just because she told me a lot about her personal life, doesn't mean he would be willing to share such disclosures with me. Is it just that by having contact with him, it might make me feel a little closer to her? An impossibility, as she is gone and I'm never going to see or speak to her again.

If anyone has any thoughts on the pro's and con's of this, or any wisdom to share, I'd appreciate it, because this yearning is only getting stronger and I need to deal with it one way or another.

I don't think it sounds like a good idea - it might create more suffering instead.

I guess I would ask myself the following: What are you - specifically - expecting or looking for from reaching out to him? What if he does not 'satisfy' this expectation? What if he does reply, then what? And how would it help? What if he does not respond? Etc.

I don't know. I see both pros and cons. Pros would be that maybe you can process this loss with someone who can relate to what you're dealing with. Cons would be that it might exasperate your pain.

In my personal life, if something happened to L, I would hope to see her coworker J. J has been my backup therapist twice now and we have a great rapport already. She is actually friends with L, and also reminds me a lot of L. I personally would want to be as connected to L as possibly can. It might cause me pain, but I think, hope, it would provide me healing as well.

Have you done anything to honor your T's memory? Write a journal, make a scrapbook, light a candle, etc.?

I totally understand the yearning to talk to t's son. When my t was seriously ill in hospital the need to reach out to her husband was almost unbearable and I think if she had passed away I would have been very tempted to just to have that contact with people who knew her. The loneliness of dealing with the loss or potential loss of a therapist is beyond words. I can imagine how awful you feel.

I do think it's probably wise to consider what you would want to get out of the contact though and whether it would be a good idea. It's so hard isn't it. I'm just thinking it would there be any way now of finding out who her supervisor was so that you could maybe reach out to them instead of t's family who are dealing with their own grief. Otherwise the only real option is to try and find a therapist who you really connect with and feel able to process this a bit more. It might be that the therapists you have been working with haven't quite been enough to support you with it. I know it's hard when you really connected with an ex t. I don't know how I could possibly have moved on if my t had passed away. My heart goes out to you

Were you hoping that her son would become your new therapist?

It feels to me like the focus of your work with the son would become more about them and the past, than purely about you. It would just be lurking there. And that would be a hindrance and a distraction.

Sorry to hear that the pain and grief is still so hard for you. I can't imagine losing my T to dying. As you say there is no one to share stories with or talk about your therapist with. I have actually spoken about the possibility of this in my therapy. How lonely and difficult a loss it would be. In many ways more so than any other loss.

It seems totally understandable that you would want to reach out to her son who is a T too. Not the same thing at all I know but when my mom passed I wanted (and have) become closer to my aunts. They are not my mum nor do I want them to be my mom but they closest thing I have now to her and who she was.

I'm not sure about the ethics around it and whether her son would be willing to see you as a client. I'm thinking likely not as it would be a conflict I guess. but in some ways I could see how it might actually be beneficial to you to be able to speak about her to someone who knew her. Maybe even one session where you were able to share what she meant to you and how hard the loss is would help with closure. But perhaps would also be quite difficult for him. I wouldn't see him being able to take you on as a client. I don't see the harm in reaching out and asking but only if you are prepared for the answer to be no.

Please don’t contact her son again. As someone grieving the loss of a close family member, I would find this intrusive and exploitive.

I also suspect that rather than helping you heal, this would actually greatly complicate your grief recovery. Too many complications.

I hope you can work through this some other way. This seems to go beyond normal grief.

I also wouldn't reach out to him. It makes me think of this thing called "ring theory," where if you need support, you look to people further outside the ring that you (and give support to the people more inside the ring). Where the ring in this case, your late T is the center, and her close family and friends are further inside the ring than you. So it would not be appropriate to look to them--including her son--for support in grieving her. I'd also be concerned that if you did reach out, he wouldn't be so willing to respond at this point, which could hurt you further.

Note that if this T were a former colleague of hers rather than her son, it would be different and probably fine to contact him/her. Did she work in a practice at one point? Just wondering if maybe it could help to try working with one of those T's, who did know her but not at the level of her son.

I'm sorry you're struggling with this so much. When you say you've tried to work through her death with three different people, do you mean three different T's? Or just, say, friends/family members? If it's the latter, then I'd try to work through it with a T. If you've already tried a few T's, maybe see if you can find one who specializes in grief to work with, say, in the short-term? It may be that what you need most is time though, as it's still been considerably less than a year.

Apologize ahead of time if my frankness offends anyone.
Did you have any romantic interest in her ? The fact that she disclosed
personal information to you maybe makes you feel "closer" to her
than you normally should have felt. How long were you in therapy with her ?
A therapist should be nothing more than a guide , not a partner , parent ,
or friend. And rarely should give out personal information. There could have been a lot of transference going on in your sessions.
Getting in touch with her son is only you trying to continue your connection
with her. Other than a sympathy card , I believe it's totally inappropriate to
be contacting her son. Grieving is hard and is done in different ways. Some
healthy , some not so healthy.

What exactly is normal grief?

Upon reflection I'd likely agree that it's probably not the best idea to reach out to her son again especially as you have already done so. I'm a bit perturbed by some of the posts leaning towards the desire to want to do so being some how inappropriate or wrong. I would think it entirely understandable that you want to. We do not have to act on our desires but in the midst of big feelings it can be difficult to wade through the emotions and reach a rational decision. Listening to other perspectives can sometimes be helpful in this.

My mother was not a therapist but did work with clients. When she died I had numerous people who used to be her client reach out to me who wanted to talk about her or share their experience about her with me. It was actually very helpful to know she had impacted so many people positively. I imagine your letter or email showed that already. Had my mothers clients continued to pursue me to want to talk more about her after their initial interaction it would have likely felt intrusive and perhaps inappropriate.

Self disclosure from a therapist can be incredibly helpful if done appropriately and in the interest of the client and is common. Feeling or developing a close connection to your T is also common and normal especially if you have worked together for a long period of time. Whilst of course your therapist is not your mother depending on your type of therapy they may have brought up many feelings that your mother or parents did. None of this is wrong. Grieving is a difficult process at the best of times. Grieving a therapist adds another layer of complication.

I'm sorry that you are still struggling it sounds incredibly difficult. As one poster said you it sounds like time and continuing to speak about it more with another trusted professional is the only way through the pain.

Thank you everyone who has responded so far. I have read all your replies and do agree on balance, that reaching out a second time would not be the right thing to do. But it is always helpful to hear other people's views on such a topic, especially when one is too close to it to see clearly.

@rive - I don't know what I would be looking for, but you are correct that it would likely hurt more if he did not respond, or responded in a negative way.

@ScarletPimpernel - I'm glad that you have a back-up T as a support if your main T is unavailable, and given that they know each other, I guess it makes it easier from your point of view. I have journaled and written a letter to T which I then burnt and sprinked the ashes into the sea.

@Lonelyinmyheart - Unfortunately I have been told by the BACP (a UK governing body of Counsellors and Psychotherapists) that there is no way to access this information. Thank you for your kind words.

@downandlonely - No I was not hoping for her son to become my therapist. Any subsequent contact would have been a one-off time only; I only feel comfortable working with a female therapist so ongoing support from a male, especially her son would not be a viable option for me anyway.

@unaluna - Yes I agree, it would become more of a reminiscing appointment rather than helping me to move on.

@smileygal - Yes, all I was looking for was contact with someone else who knew her. A family member is not ideal, because they are in the throes of their own grief, but that is the only contact I know of. I do appreciate your second post about receiving another contact from me could be seen as intrusive and inappropriate, something which I did consider in my original post. But it is always good to get other's perspectives on it.

@ArtleyWilkins - Thank you for your reply. I reached out initially because I felt it was the right thing to do and he seemed to appreciate the fact that I had done so. I do get what you mean about potentially complicating my grief recovery. Not sure what you mean about going 'beyond normal grief'. Do you mean because she was my counsellor that I shouldn't be feeling this distressed, that I should be 'over it' by now... would you be able to explain a little more please?

@LonesomeTonight - I've not heard of 'ring theory' before, thank you for explaining it. Yes it makes sense that it should only be people outside of the ring to give me support rather than the people in it. Unfortunately she was self employed and so didn't have any colleagues I could make contact with, that is why if I'd had the details of her supervisor, I would have contacted them. I have tried 2 other counsellors plus someone from the bereavement charity that I (ironically) work for. However, I did not want to mix work and personal stuff and found it very difficult to speak to someone as a client and then have them as my colleague as well. I know that doing the work I do has likely impacted on my own ability to cope with this, because distress and loss and grief is right there in front of me every day.


@moodyblue83 - I never mind people being frank, I'd rather people say what they think than beat around the bush. No I did not have any romantic interest in her (at least not in the traditional sense), but I did feel emotionally attached to her. I was in therapy with her for just over a year, with a break of 3 months in the middle when she first became ill. We resumed working together (at her instigation) for a further 3 months before she gave up working for good. We remained in occasional contact by email and text until 2 months before she died.

Grief is a normal human process; however, grief that is so severe that you contemplate suicide or that goes on in a way that is disruptive to life for a prolonged period is complicated and probably requires intervention.

It is relative, but from what the OP is describing, this goes beyond the typical process. It seems that she is aware of that.

ETA: There is a great deal of information on prolonged or complicated grief as opposed to healthy grief. I know it has helped me in my own grief process following my husband’s death to Covid to be mindful of my own process and self-aware of signs of complications. For instance, shortly after his death, I became aware that I was having a trauma reaction to the prolonged months of witnessing his suffering in the ICU. I was able to talk to a physician friend of mine who helped me see that as not unusual under the circumstances, came up with a plan for replacing the images from the hospital with healthier ones, and was able to work through that trauma fairly smoothly. I attended some Griefshare meetings which gave me some support and a bit of a sense that there are other people out there also going through a similar grief process. And I did a great deal of reading about grief so that I could stay mindful of my own journey. I’m not through it. I’m not sure I will ever fully be; however, I am more or less at peace with the ups and downs and backs and forths of my grief journey.

I didn't read the original post as the OP contemplating suicide because of her death but that they are part of the mental health struggles they face in everyday life. The OP says that they 'remember and put into practice the things she taught them when they are feeling mega stressed etc....' I read it as someone struggling to come to terms with the loss of someone that played a big role in their life but perhaps I interpreted it wrong. If those tendencies were due to the loss of the T then yes it is more serious.

I also don't believe that grief has end deadline date.

Yes, I may also be misunderstanding the original post. It does feel like going to the deceased family member when you aren’t family could be really counterproductive for healing though.

I'd just like to clarify that the suicidal thoughts were there a long time before I met ex-T, and were one of the many reasons I started therapy. However, the fact that she was so skilled at dealing with it when I had them, is one of the things I miss about her. My current T has a very different approach and I don't feel as comfortable opening up about it with them. I kind of think that if I can't be honest about what is a major issue for me, then what's the point of being in therapy?

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East - I can relate. Ex-T was scared of my SI and SH thoughts. L, on the other hand, sees them as messages my brain is trying to communicate with me. I have to say that thinking about them in that way has really given them less power over me.

My point is that you should be able to be open and honest about your thoughts in therapy. Where else is it supposed to be safe?

I’d not be contacting therapist’s family. You expressed condolences. Anything beyond that is not healthy or productive

Sorry for your loss. It is hard. But with all due respect it’s not the same as his grief, so contacting him seeking solace isn’t right. If you want to contact him to provide comfort for him, you really don’t know him and it’s unsolicited

Therapists usually won't counsel family members. Perhaps you can find another therapist. I am so sorry for your loss.......Is there a grief group in your area? Sadly, losing loved ones is something we all have to deal with....do you have a friend you can talk to? Keeping a journal can be helpful

Having had a therapist die I totally understand all that you posted. I lost my therapist during treatment. Like you my therapist talked about her family members over the years especially her son. I was fortunate un that I was able to attend her funeral so got to meet her son and other family members. For quite some time I wanted to reach out to her son. For me, I was feeling very motherly as I knew he was struggling. I refrained though.. I was able to have a bit of email contact with my therapist's partner.

This board was a HUGE help. Sometimes I feared I was annoying people but most people were great. Outside of this board nobody seemed to understand my grief because nobosy else in my family has atrended therapy nevermind long term therapy.

I also had a wonderful therapist who helped me process the grief. Grief is hard. The theraputic relationship is unique. So the grief feom the death of a therapist is really difficult. My therapist died 4 1/2 years ago. It has gotten much easier but I still have really hard days where I think about her and wish she was still her as my therapist.

Stuff like that can happen, a former Therapist of mine moved away over 5 years ago and I still miss her.