I happen to be in a fun season right now where a handful of couples who started at roughly the same time are wrapping up their work in therapy. To some of them, the process of just discussing the end of therapy is evoking various feelings from anxiety to grief to even disbelief. (I had a wife say to me today, “I thought we were going to be in therapy for the next two years!”)
(By the way, I’m writing this post mainly for couples, but many of the same ideas apply to individual psychotherapy as well.)
In grad school we’re taught to start talking about termination early. “Termination” is the weird word we use to describe the conclusion of therapy. (No one likes that word, but for some reason we’re still using it.) Anyway, we’re taught, firstly, to keep in the back of our minds that termination is our ultimate goal.. to help folks and then release them to live their lives, free of needing us. Secondly, we’re taught to bring up termination early to get clients used to the idea that effective therapy—in most cases—is going to be a time-bound process with an eventual end date.
So, what happens when counseling is coming to an end? What should we expect to feel?
This is not an exhaustive list, but these seem to cover the most basic feelings..
- Relief. After all, you might have been worried your marriage was over. Now, you’re holding hands and laughing and saying things like, “I never want you to feel lonely like that again.. How can I make sure that never happens?” How much better is that??
- Mixed feelings, in general but anxious or nervous, in particular. Maybe relief is the big one, but “uhhh… what’s that slightly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach?” That’s anxiety, my friend. The world may be much better now. Maybe the color has returned like when Dorothy leaves Kansas and walks into Oz. But just a few short months or weeks ago, things were pretty grim. And, maybe things had been grim for a long time. “Are we kidding ourselves? Is this just a fluke? Will things just go back to the way they were?” It can be hard to trust that the change that’s taken place will stick when we feel we have so much evidence to the contrary.
- Grief. Believe it or not, it’s not unusual for a person or a couple to experience a twinge of grief. If we think about it, a therapist joins our inner world in an intense and very often very profound way. Especially, if they are joining into a very painful part of our lives to provide empathy, validation and care—something we’ve maybe not experienced much of or not at all—it can be difficult to imagine that person not being there anymore. It’s not unusual to hear nervous jokes from clients like, “Sure you don’t want to just move in for a little while?” It makes sense. To a couple that’s been living in tension, chaos, sadness, disconnection, etc., of course it would make sense there would be sadness in saying goodbye to the person who entered into their story and stuck it out with them.
Some things to remember..
- If your time in therapy was successful, remember you did the work. If you were a couple that showed up—and you know what I mean by “showing up”—and risked vulnerability week after week, you need to hold on to that. Celebrate it. Put that in the evidence locker. Yes, of course the role of a good therapist is helpful to the process, but therapists don’t fix marriages—married people do.
- You have the tools, so no need to panic if things get a little squirrelly. You just went through a process that, again, you did. Yes, things could start to feel a little like what they used to—before getting help—but you can always stop, take a deep breath and check in with yourself and with each other. “Hey, I’m kind of feeling scared like I used to.. when I thought you might think this is too much and just leave. Is it okay if we back up and start over?”
- You can always come back for a “tune up.” The end of a course of therapy is just that.. the end of a course of therapy. If you feel like your couples game is getting off-track again and you’re not feeling the confidence to get it back on your own, you can always go back in for a few sessions to course correct. A setback in marriage is not the end of the world. It’s just a setback. And, far better to address as soon as it comes up, than to let it fester.
Couples therapy can be a lot of work, so of course it would make sense if “can we go and home and really do this?”-kinds of feelings come up. Give yourself the permission to feel whatever you’re feeling, and maybe most importantly—if you’re a couple, you have each other to process with. It’s okay to express your fears about it just being the two of you again. Validate and reassure one another. And, if it’s been a while and you feel like you need to.. go back in for a tune up.
If you’ve not yet started your counseling journey, but know you need to, I would be honored to walk alongside you.
