Unplanned Endings

Hi there!

Just some very general thoughts that aren't specific to the relationship between therapist and client. This is just the way I'd like to think I'd look at any experience that left me with some kind of feeling of stuckness or unresolvedness.

It's just to be with it; not to try to pick it to pieces or evolve a narrative around it to parcel it off and pack it away. This because I believe this is the fundamental process for transformation into wholeness. It can take time of course and that is perhaps more the problem. But I do think that not having time is just another obstacle to doing that which will find a way of being done one way or another.

This is interesting in this context:

There is also preliminary evidence to suggest that client outcomes might be enhanced by therapists after they have received mindfulness training (Grepmair, Mitterlehner, Loew, Bachler, et al., 2007; Grepmair, Mitterlehner, Loew, & Nickel, 2007). However not all studies have shown a positive correlation between therapist mindfulness and client outcome (Stanley, Reitzel, Wingate, Cukrowicz, Lima, & Joiner, 2006).

From:

Norbu

Perhaps I also feel I got something wrong (what would that be?) with these clients, both of whom I felt confident about working with to help them through their issues.

I'm sure you know all this, Bay, but for the lurkers :wave:, here goes:Not sure about wisdom, though:

in no particular order:

Rarely any such thing as an unplanned ending from the client's perspective: they have decided, consciously or otherwise, not to return, and not to tell you why. Your feeling of sadness could be what the client is avoiding by having the planned ending. Is that the pattern in their previous relationships?

The ending starts in the first session. I usually make this very clear to clients, that we are working to an agenda, which includes the ending, and the ending in therapy can be very useful to them as it helps them to look at how they end things and move on, a huge part of life. I rarely give them more than the bare bones of this, but its useful to mention when they set their agenda, so at least if and when they leave without telling me, they remember later that its their choice and there are lessons they might usefully learn from that. If their pattern is to avoid commitment, I insist on payment for the following session before leaving the current session. You would be surprised how much stuff that brings out.

(For a similar reason, I won't work with clients who present with a history of finishing relationships with lots of public recrimination and complaint - life's too short to have to prepare a case and defend myself ten sessions down the line to the HPC or whoever. Just in passing.)

You felt confident in being able to help them with their issues. It came as a terrific shock to me when I realised that some clients don't actually want to be helped with their presenting issues at all. Or, perhaps it would be better to say that they are really ambivalent about the whole thing. I've heard many times that a client just wants to change one little thing about themselves and leave everything else exactly as it was. Almost the medical model! When it becomes clear, in a confused sort of way, that they can't do that, bye bye.

If it stands out to you that it's happened to you twice, then the universe may well be drawing your attention to something, so I think it would be worth looking at it in supervision. Your current clients will all benefit from the insights that will ensue, I expect.

Any use at all??

Hi Bay

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

It is the same with people, we are here to help, it is their choice as to who or how far they will allow someone to help them. It all boils down to them, personal choices have to be respected and we have to let go of those who no longer wish us to help them and move onto the next person who seeks our help.

Thanks Norbu, David and Paul.

Actually one of them turned out to be a mistake - (ahem!) - Client got the date wrong and has rebooked.

It's quite hard to own all this publicly, following on from another thread, I can see why we don't bare our souls more about our work: even for me - soul baring is my speciality, the more gruesome the better.

Anyway, greatly cheered up thanks 😉

It's quite hard to own all this publicly,

Well, yes, and I'm not so sure it's a good idea, or at least to be selective, for the great and good who run counselling services are not always counsellors, and even if they are, are not always counsellors I would choose to send clients too (lol, I've probably done it now).

Anyway, if HP comes up trumps, we might be able to have a kind of on-line peer supervision group, where soul-baring and confession can be conducted in safety.

Something about the benefits of self-immolation comes to mind!