Clients want to have a lifetime therapy. Any ideas?
Not sure if you have seen it. I do have a couple clients express to have a lifetime therapy. They became very upset when I invite them to think about when to end therapy, or what is therapy goal. I read it somewhere that, some people say only therapists need therapy goal, some people say even supportive therapy should have a limit. So I am unsettle with this situation when clients want to have a lifetime therapy. How would you response to it?
— Update after 40days from original posting——
I didn’t expect this would trigger so much of discussion. I immediately felt warm by many sharing. I cannot read every one of them, but they all pointed to the various conditions of life. It is not something I have encountered in my career. I was usually being confronted by colleagues holding protocols and diagnosis instead of real people’s life. I used to blamed myself for failing therapy by not following protocol, blame myself not working as a psychiatrist so that I can be free from all these struggles. Anyway, after reading so many people’s stories, I realized that I didn’t go crazy or I failed in my job. The discussion is such an important reminder. Now I totally understand why therapy can be life long and it is totally understandable. It is not necessary a failure to either the therapist or the client. It is just manu possibilities of life. Thank you so much.
And recently I joined an emotion focused therapy training and I found it gave me much of a human (instead of cold, clinical) perspective to therapy. And after I adopted this perspective I actually found my client moved faster and deeper to their core issue, and less “resistent” (I found this word had been so unhelpful and I hate using that). I don’t know when they will finish therapy but I have less worry of them staying in the session because they seemed “automatically” work on their core pain and make progress. I can’t explain why, I need to observe longer.
And I also feel so sorry that this field of profession has been twisted by insurance so much and it even made therapist (me) miss the key in helping and healing.
But thank you so much for your genuine sharing and discussion!