Reflecting on... When is the right time to end?

It might seem paradoxical, and perhaps a little perverse, to be thinking about ending as I begin my first column for CCYP. But reflecting on endings during beginnings, and vice versa, seems pertinent. Endings are something I struggle with in general and I find therapeutic endings difficult in particular. They don’t follow the same rules as ‘normal’ relationships which end when they go bad or when they no longer gratify whatever need they were supposed to. Good relationships don’t end. Therapeutic relationships are different.  

I recently ended with a patient I’d become very fond of, who had been coming to see me for four years. I’d spent about half that time wondering when we should end. Whenever I considered ending, something got in the way; either external issues – his, or internal dilemmas – mine; ‘how could I abandon him?!’ And then something changed. The adolescent boy in the therapy room regressed into the little boy I’d met years earlier. I became aware of re-emerging themes I hadn’t seen since his early sessions. It felt as if he was leading me back to the beginning.

I was reminded of a poem which was read aloud towards the end of my training by a favourite tutor in her rich Irish brogue. The poem was T.S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’ and the quote I was reminded of is this: ‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.’

 

My ending with the boy, like the poem it brought to mind, was quite beautiful. It reminded me that therapy, like writing, is a creative process which is beyond control and may never feel fully complete. Both follow themes and boundaries, such as time/word count, but they must also be allowed space, because nothing stifles the creative process more than rigidity. And so, I will continue to challenge supervisors and commissioners (and frustrate editors) as I wait for my endings to make themselves known.

Published in BACP Children and Young People January 2012