Posted by Daisym on February 6, 2006, at 22:33:10
In reply to Re: Is this the termination phase?, posted by pegasus on February 6, 2006, at 21:44:51
I think it totally depends on the client. When my son decided he was done (the first time), we scheduled the last session and his therapist had him write down 10 things he "learned" during therapy and 5 things he still felt needed some work. And his therapist did the same. Together they read and agreed on the things on their lists of "need work" and "done with." They put the items on cards and tucked them into envelopes. His therapist gave him the "done with" to keep and said this whole speech about no one ever being able to take those things from him. And then they put the "needs work" cards in another envelope and his therapist kept those, and said he would hold on to them until my son was ready, if ever, to come back and work on them. It was a really sweet way to keep that door open.
And a year later he is back in therapy, though unfortunately, working on things from both envelopes. But it was tremendous that his therapist could create such a sense of open door safety that this 14 year old boy knew when he needed to go back and did so.
So not all pollyanna. Thank goodness.
poster:Daisym
thread:606808
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060131/msgs/607093.html