On Healthy Endings
Because Growth Loves A Witness
Over the last month, I’ve said “goodbye for now” to all my therapy clients, as I prepared for maternity leave.
It’s a really weird thing to take a leave in therapy… your client comes in because they are looking for support, help working through a problem, or practical skill building. And part of your job is to not focus on yourself as you help them.
And then, when you’re pregnant, you start taking up more space… cognitively and literally. At a certain point, it’s necessary to share with them details about your medical situation (how pregnant are you?, when will you go on leave?, how long will you be out?) that really wouldn’t be disclosed in other situations, because realistically, it affects them.
Because I work with moms, it also opens an interesting door that can be therapeutically helpful, but professionally tricky - they ask how I’m doing and they want to know. They’ve been there! They ask about details! They ask about gender, names, etc.! They are genuine in their regard for me and my pregnancy. And I have all those answers at the tip of my tongue!
But, it leaves me with a new challenge: How can I answer in a way that’s appropriate and honest, but not overwhelming or obstructing their time and space in therapy?
There’s this literal bump in the room that becomes a topic - that’s inherently about me, that otherwise wouldn’t exist.
But there’s another interesting aspect of going out on maternity leave - it’s a really concrete ending.
In life, endings are inevitable. We end commitments, responsibilities, and relationships. And unfortunately, as we age - it feels like a lot of things end without ceremony.
We go from marking end of the semester, graduations, birthdays, and moments to just living through them. We are so full and busy - passing onto the next thing, that we rarely sit in the reflection that endings allow.
It’s one trip to the next - laundry load to laundry load. Rise and repeat the necessary functions to follow through on our commitments, until they blend into the next round of commitments.
The last few months, it’s been so fun for me to sit with clients and point out their progress and the evolution of them as people since they started therapy.
I’ve pulled up the original goals of every single client and reflected on their growth through the time that we’ve worked together. And it’s been so fun to be a partner, witnessing their development - and being able to call out how they’ve changed, and ask questions about what they’ve noticed themselves.
This is all a normal part of the “termination” process in therapy, but it’s abnormal as a therapist to have the chance to do it again and again - repeatedly day after day for a few weeks straight. Getting to look people in the eye and say “I see you! I’ve seen that progress and witnessed that growth!" is such a gift.
And these repeated callouts are different than how we would communicate in our weekly, biweekly, or monthly sessions. In those routine sessions, my clients and I have a way of relating to one another - a way that we start, participate in, and end sessions. And that rhythm is good! It’s helpful for me and them to have a system that we follow. And, it’s also good to disrupt the system every once in a while, and give everyone a chance to readjust to a new normal, see how they feel, and decide how they’d like to move forward.
Not dissimilarly, it’s prompted a lot of clients to give me positive feedback, a “thank you”, or an acknowledgement of our work together. Which sounds like a little thing, but being a therapist is truly a strange job without performance reviews and far less opportunities for feedback.
Realistically, the type of therapist I’ve been hasn’t changed in the last month or so, but for both my clients and me, creating the space to reflect and voice our gratitude, progress, and evolution has been a really powerful thing.
I don’t expect I’ll be basking in the joy and praise forever (in fact, my kids have already humbled me repeatedly on my leave), but it’s made me think about how we don’t get intentional endings very often in adulthood. We don’t prioritize time to reflect and adjust - especially as parents who could have every minute of every day filled.
So this week, I want to ask: what would it be like to sit down with someone who you love, who you see regularly, or is a part of the rhythm of your life and do a check-in?
where did you begin this year?
what goals and hopes were you holding?
what has surprised you about the year so far?
in what ways are you proud of yourself?
is there anything you’re embarrassed about?
what can you change in the coming months that would feel good?
Growth can feel so much more powerful when you have a witness and intentionality <3
