Christian Billington

…Before the end of termination. Last week I described my experience with couple’s termination. This week I wanted to share another facet of one particular termination that was without a doubt a more difficult end than I would have anticipated. It is an interesting quandary that no one seems to have an answer for. How do you terminate with your co-therapist?

The termination stage of therapy is something that I equally dread and relish. I have learned in practicum and in life that endings can mean almost as much as the preceding work and effort. And who enjoys saying goodbye anyway?

On my last post I talked about the idea of doing your own work individually – see “Do your own work.” In that post I talk a lot about the “self” of the therapist and what that means. I acknowledged that there are ways to let things go and other ways to unburden the pile up of psychological work we all undertake everyday. One of those ways is peer support and I wanted to blog a little about my practicum experience and the importance of networking within your community of peers. As a way of managing cases that seem to stick with you or “get into your head,” and even as a way to share cases, to learn and to process, peer support has already proven invaluable for me. Already in practicum I have clients who affect me and it helps a great deal to have trusted allies with whom to share and help process the why and how we are being affected by certain cases. Peer support in my opinion is a two way street so we learn from other counselors’ experiences and cases, while at the same time we learn by reflecting on our own experiences and reactions.

“The Wizard of Oz” has always been one of my favorite films. I enjoyed the story—Dorothy’s journey, the visuals, the characters and the moral underpinnings of the entire tale. I suppose you could say every character has resonated with me at some point in my life and I’ve always been very intrigued by ‘the man behind the curtain.’ After all, haven’t you wondered how long it took him to grow that impressive handlebar moustache?

To open up a can of worms. To kick the hornet’s nest. To open Pandora’s Box. To discuss the elephant in the room. To address the 500 pound gorilla in session. These are all expressions that to most have a negative connotation and are usually associated with impending consequences and physical or mental discomfort. The expressions alone invoke a pang of anxiety for me because the implication is that something big is about to happen. If we address the elephant, name the gorilla, release the worms and unleash the hornets within the therapy room we could have a veritable mess that needs to be processed, understood and sometimes contained. This has been my experience…but is facing reality really that bad? And isn’t it important to acknowledge a problem in order to solve it?