How to break up with your therapist
Do you have an inclination that it might be time to stop seeing your therapist? I’m a big advocate of listening to your intuition, and if something isn’t feeling right - or if the relationship isn’t feeling helpful any more, it may be a natural time for the relationship to come to an end.
The first thing you should know when you are considering whether to keep seeing your therapist is that you do not owe anything to your therapist. If what feels best to you is to simply cancel your scheduled session(s) and not schedule any more, you have every right to do this. It is a therapist’s job to hold space for whatever you need. The relationship is one sided, in terms of relational needs being met. A therapist gets paid in exchange for holding the space for you and what you need during the therapy session.
This relationship dynamic or exchange is definitely different than in most other relationships that you have in your life, which have more relational give and take. In a friendship, or example, you don’t pay your friend to listen to you and support your decisions. You give to your friend, in exchange for giving to you, your time and space to hold whatever their experience is in life. This feels like an important distinction to make at the start of this guide.
Your therapist as therapist vs. as human
Your therapist, when they are with you, is a therapist first, and has an obligation to you to accept and support you in your decision to leave therapy with them. Therapists are also human, and can form strong attachments to their clients. Howwever, therapists are supposed to be able to set their own feelings and potential attachment to you as their client aside in order to support your decision to end therapy with them.
Just because a therapist is supposed to be able to do something, or has a responsibility in their position to do something, does not mean that they are capable of doing this all of the time. Sometimes their humanness overrides their best intentions as a therapist. One of the most common places that a therapist’s human experience may seep out and override their therapist obligations is when a client they like and enjoy working with decides to terminate therapy with them. They may also be concerned that you, as client, may struggle more without their help, and have trouble releasing you to your journey due to their own worry. Also, they could have their own struggles with scarcity and worry that they won’t find more clients. Often, therapists in private practice or outpatient mental health settings get paid per client seen. So it’s possible that there could be a worry for them that their income will be negatively affected or the organization they work for will get upset that their client numbers are down.
That’s all to say that therapists have some common struggles around clients breaking up with them. AND it is not the client’s job to adjust to what they may be sensing are the therapists human struggles. These are all just things to keep in mind as you consider what may be coming up for your therapist below the surface.
To read more, including access templates that you can use to break up with your therapist, purchase the guide below!
Struggling with how to tell your therapist you no longer want to see them? Are you not quite sure how to do it or what your options are? This guide will walk you through your options from contemplation to completion and feelings that may come up after. The guide also provides templates and scripts that you can use or build on to make the break up process easier.
