This week we looked at endings in counselling. It is quite a broad term and has a lot of meanings. It could concern the end of a single session or the end of a series of sessions. It could refer to endings in good ways or bad ways. It also encompasses the wide variety of feelings and emotions experienced towards endings. It could even refer to what happens at the end of this course, of which I write my feelings towards in my Reflective Diary this week.
In terms of emotions felt towards an ending, they are almost limitless, and would be slightly different for everybody. We specifically talked about a range of six sessions in class, and when this contract has expired and the counsellor and client are no longer seeing one another, the client could feel a sense of loss at losing the person they have been talking to for weeks. They could feel depressed or disappointed at the ending if a favourable outcome was not reached in an allotted time. They could feel rejected and take the end of a contract personally. They could also be panicked by the end of the relationship. In terms of good feelings they could feel empowered, understood and uplifted by the sessions if they went well. They could also feel that they have been healed, and possibly a feeling of relief.
A counsellor is not immune to the effects of endings either. They could feel disappointed or frustrated if the sessions did not go well. They could worry about their client, or feel guilty if they didn’t feel they were doing their best for them. The counsellor could also feel anxious if they are unsure of the client’s capacity to cope outside of therapy. If the sessions went well then the counsellor could have a deep sense of satisfaction, or be proud of their client and the progress they have made together. It is important that a counsellor not take it personally if a client suddenly decides they don’t want to come to counselling anymore; if a client has a turbulent lifestyle, they could have stopped for any number of reasons.
A counsellor or client could end the relationship before its intended duration or before any progress has been made for a number of reasons. A good way to alleviate any bad feelings that could arise from an abrupt ending is to continually summarise meaningful events, and highlight the key points and any important revelations just in case the full range of sessions are not long enough or the client or counsellor suddenly become unavailable. A good way to deal with time constraints and the end of sessions is to be clear very early on in the counsellor/client relationship the durations of the individual sessions and the length of the contract overall. Solid boundaries are important in general, not just related to endings and time management – most clients are respectful of them if they are clear and kindly enforced.
The consequences and risks of not having a proper or appropriate ending are manifold. For example, a sensitive issue about a client’s childhood could be uncovered in a session, and briefly explored – it would have taken a few more sessions to fully uncover it, understand it and its ramifications, and come to some kind of peace with it. As the counsellor and client did not have time to fully explore it, the issue was left hanging for a week.
The client did have deep thoughts about it in the week between sessions, but the counsellor broke a limb, and has to go to hospital for two months, and is therefore unavailable for any further sessions. Depending on the temperament and personality of the client, having no closure on this issue could be disastrous. Having a massive revelation about your childhood and how it pertains to how you are now, but then not having the tools to explore the issue fully would not be a good thing. In this scenario assigning another counsellor would probably be the best course of action, depending on if the client is happy with that, and happy going through the preliminary warm up discussions beforehand.
