We look at endings at the very start of the work we do together, about how you’ll know when you’re ready to end counselling. What are your goals? What do you want to achieve? We will check in throughout sessions to see how you feel you’re getting on – you are the expert on you! How long it will take depends on you. I want you to get to a place where you don’t need to see me. I don’t want you to pay for something you no longer need and more than that, I want it to happen in an organic way that’s healthy for you.
The process of therapy, whether long or short, will likely have shaken up the way you think, and that deserves your respect. In completing the work you have begun, you are showing yourself respect for the hard work you have put in and leaving the door open for you to return to self-reflection. My preferred way of ending things is to let me know when you feel you’re ready, or start to feel it, and we can discuss it. I won’t dissuade you, but it will give you and me a chance to reflect on our work together. If, for some reason, I want to end things with you, then I will discuss it with you as well. It is a two-way street.
Of course, you may also decide that therapy isn’t for you and stop coming. People sometimes decide that they’ve had enough and I get that. I would ask that you let me know in plenty of time. There are also the endings that happen due to unavoidable circumstances. Something could happen to you. Something could happen to me. We cannot predict the future, and this is something we all have to consider, but my aim is to facilitate a mutual ending with every client in order to provide a positive experience of endings.
Endings should not be something to fear or cause anxiety, and if we manage them well, they can be embraced as something that will inevitably happen.