Posted by Dinah on July 25, 2004, at 11:22:46
In reply to Termination, posted by Susan47 on July 25, 2004, at 11:05:47
I'm sure therapists get training. I'm also sure their training only prepares them with the tools they need for each client, in the termination or any other phase. No two clients are alike, and no two therapies are alike, and no two terminations are alike. A therapist might specialize is a certain type of therapy, so that there is a great deal of uniformity in their work. But if they ever start churning out their therapies, I think they're past being a good therapist.
I think what a lot of people don't understand unless they've been in a long term therapy relationship is that you can't make a friend or lover out of your therapist, but you can't make a therapist out of your friends and lovers either.
So an ideal therapy wouldn't end in a client finding a substitute in other real life people for the therapist. It would be incorporating the therapist so that a person can act as their own therapist. I have a husband and family and friends and with them I have the relationship that is appropriate to have with a husband and family and friends. With my therapist I have a therapeutic relationship. My relationship with my therapist can't substitute for other relationships in my life. My relationship with others in my life can't substitute for my therapeutic relationship.
I once suggested to my mother that she seek therapy for a problem she was having. She said "I don't need a therapist. That's what family is for." and I looked back over my childhood and put it in context of that sentence and wished most fervently that she had had long term therapy for my entire childhood. Because she tried to have me fill the therapist's role.
Different people need different things from therapy. Because of that, terminations are different, therapies are different, and one size does *not* fit all.
What do *you* need from termination?
poster:Dinah
thread:370278
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040723/msgs/370284.html