Hi Summer,

This is a really good question. Obviously I can’t answer it from the standpoint of therapy (yet!), because as you know, we’re in the same boat regarding abrupt termination. And I'm still mourning and struggling with that. But I still think I can offer a reply, based on past relationships, on what I’ve learned so far from therapy and on this site, and on the belief that I’m forming a healthy attachment to my T. What I have is the hope that the relationship will naturally transition when the healing is completed.

So far I’ve met with my T eight times. I can only compare it to two significant relationships I’ve had with women where, in the beginning, I was definitely the more “needy” one. I’ve described one of them on another thread, where I called her my “Spirit Mother”. I could very well call the other one my "Spirit Sister". I received a lot of healing in those relationships, and there was a definite transition when the healing was done. It was a little painful, but absolutely nothing like the termination with my former T. Basically I began to buck back when they would try to help, because somewhere along the line I had grown stronger. In both cases there was a period of limited or no communication, where I wondered if we’d ever be close again. Then, after a time, we tentatively continued our friendships, but on a more equal foundation where I was no longer the “needy” one. And I can say with absolute certainty that the good was not undone whatsoever.

I love the descriptions in General Theory of Love regarding how limbic connections work. These relationships are the closest thing to it that I’ve experienced. I think that’s why the attunement of the T is so vitally important. I thought my former T was attuned to me because he was charming and funny. But now I think it was just attraction on my part (and maybe distraction on his?). I was also in a very vulnerable position to be sidetracked because I was so lonely in my marriage. I’m so glad now that I kept a journal because it’s just rampant with examples of how not attuned he really was. In fact, I now know that the reason I felt so driven to journal is because he wasn’t listening to me in sessions. He became either defensive or dismissive at several key points I tried to make. And on top of that, I was getting triggered all over the place from some inappropriate comments he made. Since I couldn’t get any of my stuff out in sessions, I would have to download at home. I realized all of this when I noticed that I am not driven to journal about my sessions with the new T.

Still, there must have been some kind of limbic connection because I told him about a tangible example of it once. My former T had a way of asking me open-ended questions. One problem I have in my marriage is that my husband will often start talking about a subject “in the middle” of the story, and I get frustrated and shut down because I have no idea what he’s talking about. After I’d been in therapy for a while, I noticed that I was not always shutting down with my husband at these times. I was starting to ask open-ended questions, which drew us into a conversation...and then one day I realized that I was unconsciously imitating my T! I was so excited to see that, because it really was a limbic kind of thing. I didn’t purposely set out to do that, I just kind of “absorbed” it from my T and it came out in my marriage. I think this is one small example of what GTOL is talking about.

I agree with you that it would be nice to read about successful therapy endings. The closest I’ve gotten to reading success stories in therapy is a book I bought called “Their Finest Hour – Master Therapists Share Their Greatest Successes”, but of course that is from the T’s point of view, and I wonder if all the patients would agree that the therapy was as successful as the T’s thought. Maybe I will keep an eye out for a similar collection of success stories as seen through the patient’s eyes.

Well I don’t know if any of this is helpful, but I’m glad you asked the question, and I look forward to what others have to say.

SG

Hi Summer, I don't know the answer and can't imagine a time when I won't be so needy and attached to several people who are supporting me through this crisis. My dr says that is the illness that makes me not be able to see a light at the end of the tunnel. But I also know that I have always been like this, just not as desperate as I am now.

I also know the pain of an abrupt termination with my T. Even though he let me go back to him I really wanted to die when he ended and would not return my calls. But like SG it wasn't a healthy therapeutic relationship on his part.

At this point I have a healthy relationship with my dr who is seeing me twice a week until I see my new P. I am very reliant and dependent on her at the moment. She is meeting my needs as best she can and I am grateful to her for her support. I tell her everything and I am not scared to tell her anything at all. I have been through this before with her and when I am a bit better I don't need to go so often and when in a crisis I need to see her regularly. I do love her in a totally healthy way and I think she loves me too in that she wants what is best for me and cares how I am and how I am progressing. Also, there is no pain in this relationship - I know she is there for me and always holds the boundaries.

I am unsure why this relationship is so different to the one with my T. Maybe it is because she is a dr and not a T but most likely because she always holds the boundaries so beautifully and is not scared of me being so dependant on her.

Maybe the pain comes down to the therapist in the first place not being attuned and worried more about their needs than ours and not holding boundaries.

quote:

What I have is the hope that the relationship will naturally transition when the healing is completed.

SG, this is my greatest hope because at this moment the thought of EVER leaving my T feels like death to me. I simply cannot imagine my life without him in it and that is terrifying. I realize that most of this comes from really not being ready to leave and knowing that there is a lot more healing and processing to be done. My attachment to him still feels tenuous, in that I'm not secure with it and I struggle (or we both do) with how much dependency is the right amount of dependency. (I really need to go post at the dependency thread.) I have not had enough time in therapy to correct the development that was damaged in childhood. I hope one day I will just know it's the right time to go...

But I can't focus on that now. I have work to do. I know there will be pain when I have to leave him. He has been the most important and influential person in my life, he is my anchor and my safety. I have looked my whole life for him and walking away will be the hardest thing I will ever have to do.

As for happy endings? I've never heard of any where loving feelings in the therapeutic relationship are involved. It's easy to walk away when your T is a just a T and you don't have that special, attuned connection. The other side is what SG and Summer experienced. Abrupt terminations without closure. I cannot fathom the painful place that leaves you in.

TN

quote:

I had a horrendous termination in terms of how it affected me and I am wondering how do those who have healthy attachments to their Ts/Ps and feel love within the relationship envision an end to the relationship that will not cause pain and threaten to undo all the good achieved in the relationship.

Hi Summer
I think this is an excellent question and I think that I want to answer because I'm getting very close to actually experiencing a good end to therapy or possibly just a good working through of the transference. I find how I'm feeling now and where I've gone to be really difficult to articulate so I'm hoping this makes some kind of sense.

My past couple of sessions have been really good ones and I've been experiencing something very different in my life. There have been major shifts both in my feelings about myself and about my therapist.

My feelings about myself have undergone a 180 degree turn from an incredible self-loathing an self-doubt to now understanding that all of me is acceptable. Not perfect mind you and I know there are areas that I need to work on but at my core I know who I am is worthwhile, deserving of care, and I am comfortable with who I am for lack of a better term. I learned that through my Ts care and attention. I learned I mattered because I mattered to him. And in being able to explore my feelings with him I learned that so many of my beliefs, especially about myself, were lies.

I have also moved from being incredibly obsessed with and terrified about my bond with my therapist and again by his willingness to hear me and allow me to talk about and examine my feelings I have slowly come to trust him, and to trust the relationship. Again, it's hard to put into words but I KNOW deep down and in my gut that he's there. I had a major breakthrough a few months back when I sent him a really long email because I had put in an emergency call to him and he sounded so exaperated to me that I was convinced he was burning out and I needed to go before I completely destroyed our relationship. Turned out he was rushed but not exasperated and he ended his reply by telling me that it would be good to discuss in our next session. He explained to me that we're not supposed to be worried about the bond, it is supposed to be the taken for granted background in which we can grow and differentiate and do what we need to. That not having that is what makes us so anxious about it now but that I didn't need to worry. He shared with me the poem "I carry your heart (I carry it in mine) by EE Cummings:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whether a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret that nobody knows
(here is the roor of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

The poem was used in the movie "In Her Shoes" which I had loved so it was very powerful for me. He explained to me that the connection was just there, that even when we were apart we carried each other with us. That although it was beyond explanation (the mystery keeping the stars apart) it was, nevertheless, very real. When I accepted this, I also accepted that this was a real relationship and I was loved. I gave him a heart shaped silver box with a green heart stone in it and thanked him for teaching me this truth about a month later. He was visibly moved when I gave it to him and it was obvious that it meant a lot to him. He put it on the table that sits between us and its been there ever since. I told him when I gave it to him that it wasn't so much a gift, as something I needed to leave in his office.

Once I realized that this connection was real and could be trusted, I finally dealt with some major grief issues until recently I finally broke through the guilt I had carried about going to him for so long (I posted about it). Since then I have felt very close to my T, both in and out of session. The only way I can describe it is to say that I carry a deep certainty that he is with me no matter where I am, and that I am with him no matter where he is. That I can be totally open with him and completely myself knowing I'll be met with understanding. And I haven't need to make an emergency call or email in over six weeks when I used to NEVER make it through a week without contacting him at least once.

There has been a growing sense of flow and balance, that as things have come up I have known I could handle them and have known what to do, that I can even catch myself in ways that I used to need my T for. And the reason I could do this is that somehow along the way, without being conscious of it, I had learned so much from my T about handling my emotions. So many things that I had been so confused about when he first told them to me are now internalized knowledge. So when something happens and my "I need to call my T" reflex kicks in, its like I can run through the conversation we would have and I don't need to call. He has taught me what I need to do to cope with my life and to engage fully in it. And I don't need him in the same way that I used to.

And trust me I am totally shocked to be able to say this as I KNEW with certainty at one point that I could not live without him. I was dependent on him for a long time. But by being dependent, I was able to learn to stand on my own. I love him very deeply and can honestly say that he is one of the most important people I have ever known. But I carry him with me in a way, he is so woven now into the fabric of who I am that I could not remove him now even if I wanted to. It has become impossible to leave him for no matter where I go I carry him with me.

I'm not quite ready to go although we've discussed it, but I now know I will be someday not in the too distant future. And I would be lying if I said that I don't still think about him alot or that it will be sad to leave him. But that's ok because I can face that now.

And I think I am finally done grieving what happened to me. I told him in our last session that for the first time in my life I feel like my past is in the past. I have reached a point of acceptance about what happened to me. It's not that I'm happy about it or see it as a good thing, but I understand and accept on a very deep level that it is a part of me. That in some ways there will always be a sadness and some residual damage to cope with but I'm more than up to the task. And in healing from what happened to me I have gained understandings and strengths I would not otherwise have. Its a part of me and that's ok. But its not all that I am either and now I am so much freer to choose where I will go and what I will do because I don't have to live in fear of triggering those old feelings.

So I believe that someday I will look at my T and tell him I don't need another appt and we'll say goodbye, at least for a little while. He's made it very clear that his door will never be closed to me. But when I do, he will go with me and I will remain with him. I'll go because it's time and the right thing to do, much like a child leaving home and he'll let me go because, as always, he puts my needs first and wants for me what he has always wanted and worked so hard to give me, a full life, one not constantly lived in fear.

I am so very grateful for where I am, for the healing that I believe God provided me through this man. I stand in a place I thought I could never reach but he always believed I could. I am freed from darkness after having despaired of ever seeing light. He gave so much of himself to help me heal and the only way to pay him back is to live a life worthy of the gift.

Forgive me for going on at such length, this is the first time I've attempted to put this into words. Thank you for asking the question and giving me an opportunity to say all this.

And I want to say thank you to everyone here. This forum has been such an important part of my healing, the love and support that I have received here carried me through many dark passages and your collective wisdom has taught me so much. I could not have done this without you.

I love you all very much. And one last thing: I know when I talk like this it all sounds so neat and linear and clear and it wasn't at all. It was hard and painful and chaotic and confusing and often terrible. I was tempted so many times to give up. It hurt beyond what I thought I could bear. Sometimes it was horribly frustrating and I felt like I was getting absolutely nowhere or getting worse. But I didn't give up because of the love and support of the people around me and I healed. Beyond all hope I healed. And please trust me that there's nothing special about me, if I can do it so can all of you. So I just want to encourage you that in your darkest moments that you hang onto the knowledge that your struggle and pain will not be in vain even if you can't believe it right then. There is another side to despair.

AG

AG, thank you for sharing this amazing and beautiful description of your journey with us. It is very inspiring to hear how healing can be accomplished from someone who is nearing the "finish line" . And I love that poem by e.e. cummings. To have that kind of connection with someone is truly a gift.

I'm kind of in awe right now so I'll just stop here.
SG

quote:

Originally posted by strummergirl:
...and then one day I realized that I was unconsciously imitating my T! I was so excited to see that, because it really was a limbic kind of thing. I didn’t purposely set out to do that, I just kind of “absorbed” it from my T and it came out in my marriage.
SG

I have a similar experience. I noticed that sometimes I communicate some things to people that before I wouldn't know how to do, how to put them into words, and it kind of reminds my the way my T would say things. Like I would also kind of copy something from him. Is it what could be also called "internalization"? Don't know if that's how this word is spelled.
Then I have times that I'm afraid that if I am already able to "internalize" my T in some ways does it mean that I am making fast progress (moving fast towards the point in time when I may be ready to end my therapy?). I don't want that.

Some other time out of a sudden I feel this unexplained anxiety, the thing in my head, stomach and chest. One of the reasons when I came to therapy. When it happens, I would normally feel uncomfortable but now I sort of welcome it. I talk to it, "Yes please stay, make yourself at home, that means I still need ... (name of my therapist), and I will need him for a long time." Ha!!

Hummingbird,

I would like to add my voice to the others to say I've missed you too I'm sorry to hear of the plumbing problem on top of everything else but glad things are finally "settling down" for you. Here's hoping for nothing dramatic to happen for a while. (Unless, of course, you want it to)

Thank you for sharing your experience in therapy. Hearing about how therapy has helped you, and seeing how it looks when it goes "right" acts as a "lamp at my feet" in what feels like utter darkness right now.

SG

(((((((((HB))))))))))))

SOOOOOO Good to hear from you! (Jumps up and down frantically waving in the general direction of South Africa!!) I'm really sorry to hear about the flood, you are seriously overdue for some boring time. I have missed you and its really wonderful to hear from you. And I always love to hear about your relationship with your T, I have learned so much from you about how to love and be loved. Thank you!

AG

Hi SG,
I don't like the sound of "utter darkness" what's going on? Always remember you can ask a friend to carry a lamp for you if you need it. (((((SG))))))

AG

Hi AG,

Maybe "utter darkness" was an exaggeration. It's nothing I haven't posted about already on this board. I just meant that I still often get a lot more discouraged than I think I "should" when I think about how my previous therapy derailed. There are some very loud "tapes" in my head that keep screaming that it was "my fault", that I'm "no good", ad nauseum. I depend more than you can imagine on the real-life success stories shared by you and a few others like HB in order to keep moving forward. So you are like "lights" on my path, kind of "showing me the way". That's all I meant. No worries!

SG

SG, I think your story could be anybody else's story as well. Things didn't work out, but if it was any of us in your shoes, it probably would go the same.

I also fear termaination, I can't imagine I would have to leave now or anytime.
However I think that we are all like children with Them, and a child can't bear the thought of not being with the parent anymore. People who have good parents don't stop loving them when they grow up, but they are ready to leave, be away from their parents. I imagine that once I will "grow up" (distant, distant future!!) I will not stop loving him, but I will be able to be on my own, without seeing him every week. But I will know where he is, and I will be able to "visit" him whenever I will feel that I must.
Basicly, I picture good, succesful termination when a child, who became an adult is ready to leave her parents and become self-sufficient and independent.
But I want to forget about it now