Posted by deborah anne lott on July 30, 2005, at 14:41:13
In reply to Re: Feelings for therapist and terminating, posted by rabidreader on July 30, 2005, at 12:26:45
Terminating therapy involutarily when you feel like you're in the middle and so attached to your therapist constitutes a very profound loss. There's no way around that -- I'm not going to try to offer you any pablum or tell you that the loss is not just as real as if a close friend or parent or sibling were to suddenly move away or to die. I think you have to allow yourself to grieve, and to do some of that grieving in session so that you and your therapist can acknowledge the loss and talk about it together.
It's important for you to do whatever you can to build a support network to get you through this time. If friends and family can't give you what you need, maybe there's a more formal support group -- even a grief group -- that you could attend.
I hope that your therapist can give you a referral so that the loss of the particular therapist does not mean a loss of the whole therapy process to which you have probably also grown attached. Ideally you could transition into therapy with this new person even before your therapist leaves. Maybe you could even have one session with both therapists present. That's not to say that you can replace your therapist so easily or that replacing him will erase the pain. Of course, it's the particularity of your therapist, no one should deny that you are attached to HIM and to being with HIM and not just to therapy. But people are often surprised in this situation at how well they can transition into working with another therapist IF the therapist is good and your current therapist briefs him/her well.
Maybe it would help you to know that you could send your therapist a card from time to time and just let him know how you're doing. I don't think you can expect him to write much back -- nor am I sure that would be a good idea -- but maybe it would help to just know that he wants the best for you and that he will be reading what you send.
I can remember being very attached to my sixth grade teacher and not wanting to graduate and leave him, and feeling near-panic at the prospect of not getting to see him every day wearing his Brooks Brothers pinstriped shirt, of not getting to hear him speak in his calm, deliberate voice. He had become probably the most reliable male figure in my life. But, as you can tell from my description, I was able to retain those images of him, and even now I can still hear the sound of his voice. So although the loss of another person is very painful, it's not absolute. You do get to hold onto some of what your therapist has given you inside. It's nowhere near as good as the genuine article, but you will always have something of him as you go forward.
There's no easy answer. You WILL SURVIVE. For myself, I know that denying the emotion or the profundity of a loss always makes the pain worse -- if I can just allow myself to feel it, then I don't feel so much fear that I'm going to drown in it.Anybody else have any suggestions?
poster:deborah anne lott
thread:534691
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050725/msgs/535677.html