2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
For many of my clients, I recommend ending therapy rather than quitting it. What is the difference?
Let me give you a few examples to start with. We worked with a client several meetings (about 10). There was an agreement for the next meeting. A few days before the meeting, I receive a message from her: “It seems to me that the last meeting was the last. Thanks for the therapy!"
Here's another SMS example: “I would like to dwell on this. I know that I still have to figure out a lot, I want to take a break and see what happens next ….
On the one hand, I understand the desires of both of these girls. And I accept this situation. On the other hand, I know that therapy is primarily about relationships. And the relationship between the therapist and the client plays an important role there. The completion of these relationships depends on what they were, how many experiences were invested in them, how many lived (and by the therapist too). And the client's state at that moment is a marker by which one can understand how the client is ready to complete the therapy. I will describe this state to you from my client experience, when I myself was undergoing therapy.
First of all, it is clarity. Clarity of my desires, needs, goals and clarity in understanding how I can satisfy them. Clarity in relationships with other people.
Secondly, it is a greater awareness of what is happening in my life. This is the feeling that I "grew up" in this therapy and can move on without the help of the therapist. I feel lightness, satisfaction. This does not mean that I have to complete all the topics, work out all the feelings, get the answers to all the questions. There were even more questions in some topics, but at that moment I felt the strength to find answers to them on my own.
Thirdly, this is the feeling that I have acquired internal forces, which are called self-reliance. Yes, there was a time when I relied on the therapist in my feelings, situations, difficulties. And he supported me, sympathized, accepted me … so that I could learn to rely on myself and support myself in difficult moments of life. This item includes the ability to take care of yourself.
The therapist, as a rule, at such moments, too, feels that the therapy is coming to an end. Sometimes therapy can end at the point when the client realizes that he has received a lot from the therapist, is grateful to him for it, and feels that he wants to grow further with… another therapist. Yes Yes. Each therapist has boundaries - personality, professional experience. And it was this client who got the best out of this therapist.
In the process of writing this article, a client called (we worked out 2 meetings) and said that the direction of psychotherapy in which I work is not very suitable for her (we discussed this as a variant of her resistance in therapy, which she encountered). It also happens.
It's about completion. So what is “leaving therapy”, quitting it? They quit therapy, as a rule, because of dissatisfaction, and even anger (usually on the therapist himself: “he doesn't give me anything, he doesn't do anything, we don't move anywhere, I pay money for“chatting”; the therapy process:“why me here I have to sit here with someone, talk, write letters, etc. ).
When a person leaves therapy, the therapist actually remains a significant figure for them. He needs this person so that he can deal with himself. But it turns on resistance, which is like a riot in adolescence. In order to get closer to yourself, to know yourself, you need to devalue what you give, get angry with the therapist, be disappointed in him. And this is also the way. Very often, the “withdrawal” from therapy is associated with the fact that a person encounters some painful experiences there that prevent him from moving on. But at the same time, the feeling remains that you need help and support, that now is not the best moment to rely on your supports, which are not yet stable enough. Therefore, withdrawal from therapy is not effective at the moment.
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