Posted by pinkeye on July 29, 2005, at 15:00:59
Dear Ms. Lott,
I have a question, which kind of plagues the mind of every babbler here. How to Survive termination? And how do we deal with the fact of losing all contact after termination with our therapists?
Is it really mandatory for a therapist to stop all contact with a former patient? It really puts the client's mind through intense hell - to suddenly stop contacting the one person who you have been treating as a close friend and associate for perhaps several years. And when the therapists don't allow any post termination contact, it makes us feel like creeps, and makes us feel like we are suddenly becoming unwanted, and untouchable even. The one person who was willing to work with you, listen to you, comfort you and console you, suddenly one day turns almost into an enemy and doesn't want to hear from you and talk to you and thinks of you as a nuisance. And it turns even decent clients into jerks, and makes us think of ourselves like stalkers wanting to call or email or hope to hear atleast a little bit from our ex therapists once in a while - maybe once in couple of months or once in 3 - 4 months.
But therapists, brutally terminate, and they don't reply to emails, and they start being completely rude and cold. And in spite of us being the best of the clients, and not creating any problems to them, they still terminate that way. And even when we tell them how bad it is making us feel, they still don't listen and somehow think that is the right thing to do. IT has happened to some of us in the board, and we are going through hell to cope us with it.
And it is really so very horrible to put up with that sudden change of face, and it blows out every trust we ever had in the process and in the counsellor.
In your mind, how do we cope up with this, and is it appropriate for therapists to maintain some contact post termination irrespective of if the therapist retired or moved away, or if the client has started visiting some other therapist? How bad could it be to write a two liner email once in 3 months to a former client, if it would help the client so immensely to not hurt?
I would like to know your opinion on this.
poster:pinkeye
thread:535336
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050725/msgs/535336.html