When I was first practicing therapy, I used to use the term “Graduating from therapy” - as if a client could walk across the stage, receive their diploma, and be done, never to look back again (as some people feel about their high school or college graduation.)
But that image doesn’t seem to fit the kind of work that I find myself doing with clients these days. Graduating from therapy feels like a one way ramp- you can only get off, you can’t get back on. That doesn’t sit well with the type of work I do.
I am in therapy myself, and I don’t think there will ever come a day when I “graduate.” Life continues to have transitions, even up until we die. Having a trusted therapist along the journey with me is something I value. Sometimes I need to just plop down on the couch and receive, hear a different perspective, do some EMDR to get through some traumatic things, sometimes I need someone else’s mind along with mine to work through and process something. I don’t want to graduate from having needs or being a human.
I’ve come to change my thoughts about the ending of therapy- now it feels more like a pause. Some of my clients will pause, and they know that they can come back at any time and we will pick back up wherever most needed. I take pauses from my own therapy from time to time, and then I return, because it is good to not be alone on this journey of life. It is good to continue learning. It is great to keep unlearning some of the unhelpful-to-me-now habits and strategies that I needed in the past, but I don’t need anymore. Sometimes I pause with one therapist, only to pick back up with another who feels like a better fit for this season of life.
Can we work through our traumas and “come to completion” on some of our EMDR targets- the answer is both yes and no. Yes, the memory can no longer disturb you. Yes, you can live without having nightmares all the time. Yes, you can have loving and fulfilling relationships.
And No, we’re never done with the work. You might not need to process it in therapy, but you are growing and learning and metabolizing the life events that have happened to you. You may not need therapy weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly, but knowing that you have a safe place to process anything that might come up feels important, even if it is years later. The only time we are static is when we are dead.
I hope that my clients know that they can always come back to therapy with me.
Whether it is working through a new level of healing from the same story we were working on before, or a new transition, I want to be the therapist that you can come back to whenever you feel a need. I am grateful to the therapists I have had who have been that for me. I also believe that different therapists can help in different seasons. So I hope that my clients feel free to explore what it is like to sit in someone else’s therapy office and learn from that relationship new and different things.
I love celebrating growth, and I believe it is a lifelong process.
I hope that you are finding yourself with some good companions along the way whether that be a therapist, your friends, your given or chosen family.