Pulling back from therapy when you should be leaning in?

April 27, 2022 2:55 AM

I've been in and out of therapy for much of my adult life, with great success. More recently I have been seeing the same therapist for almost 3 years. We met weekly for the first 2+ years, and then I started to dread the weekly visits and wanted some space. It's hard to explain, but it started feeling heavy and I didn't want to deal with it. She is psychodynamically oriented (and I tend to gravitate towards that myself).

I brought up wanting to pull back in winter of 2021, and she resisted I thought a little bit, stating that it was something to do with me avoiding intimacy, etc etc. But then in January I brought it up again, and this time she heard me though she doesn't totally agree.

Here's the thing: I'm having a hard time putting words to WHY I want to pull back and that is bothering me. I have discussed this with her a lot, but the conversations are mainly frustrating and I think one reason is b/c I think she disagrees about me cutting back sessions. I will say that when I started seeing her 3 years ago, life was messy and difficult. It looks much different now, and I do too. So some of it is that. But also, right now in my life I have big things going on, both wonderful (getting married) and very sad (father just diagnosed with terminal cancer) and possibly tough over the next year (trying to get pregnant with known fertility issues). And yet ... I don't want to go back to weekly therapy, even though I know life is ... a lot right now. When I think about weekly therapy I just feel exhausted, truly.

Can anyone relate or share some insight from either the person who is IN therapy or the therapist?

Thank you!

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (8 answers total)

This happened to me. I kept asking for some kind of success criteria and she seemed to find that a bit amusing but I just wanted to know there was an off-ramp or exit strategy in the future, otherwise it was starting to feel like a yoga class I'd inadvertently agreed to take for the rest of my life.

My biggest problem was the evasiveness.

I wound up breaking up with her via email which I felt was classless of me but also I'd had the conversation with her six times and somehow kept going to appointments because anything else felt abrupt and I just felt like am I going to do this forever out of sheer politeness? So I took the hit and felt cruddy about it but also felt sure she hadn't left me much room to handle it differently. In retrospect, I wish I had been more assertive (maybe) but on the other hand it felt like we could have an argument about it and that seems insane?

I too am interested in how therapists view these interactions.

Years passed and she is now my kid's therapist and they're a great team. I called her in desperation when I couldn't find a therapist for my daughter during the pandemic, because she was in fact a great therapist and I loved talking to her but that was kind of part of why I felt we'd run out the clock -- it was starting to be mainly *fun* to talk to her. She'd engage on anything. My daughter has greatly benefited from that level of validation and acceptance but when I had gotten past the specific things I wanted to work on, I felt I was done. She also diagnosed my daughter with ADHD and along with her medical doctor and the staff at the school we've pulled Teen Llama out of a terrifying spiral of existential angst.

When I think about weekly therapy I just feel exhausted, truly.


Pretty much how I felt, too.

Best wishes to you in all that you've got going on.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:41 AM on April 27, 2022 [9 favorites]

It may also be that you're struggling to process certain things and that's why it feels heavy. Discomfort is a part of growth... but your gut is saying something - don't ignore it.

It maybe that you need a different therapist, or at least to try a different kind of therapy. Mine makes me feel supported when going through difficult things, rather than dreading having to 'do the work' with her when the rocky patches hit. I also find psychoanalytic limited? Can encourage me to think rather than feel (which I struggle with). You don't have to go to your old therapist, try a different one out.

It may be that your 'therapy day' was too demanding? Plan out some way to make it enjoyable, I do a dance class before and that really helps. If it's just 'after each session I'm going to sit in the park and feed ducks for an hour, no thinking' that's really important.

Are you sure weekly therapy is the right thing for you right now? Could be monthly check-in.
And are you sure therapy is right for you right now? Big things doesn't necessitate therapy, maybe work out what you need (support? advice? reprogramming?) and if therapy would fill those needs.

But mostly I'd say - try a different therapist, this one may actuall be right but you're gonna know till you 'date around'...
posted by litleozy at 4:24 AM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

I brought up wanting to pull back in winter of 2021, and she resisted I thought a little bit, stating that it was something to do with me avoiding intimacy, etc etc.

Maybe you are. Maybe you have a lot of real-life intimacy going on right now with your marriage and father and conceiving and that’s where you want to be right now. Maybe you just want to try life without the training wheels for a while. Maybe some small part of you wants to prove to itself that it’s allowed to say “yes” or “no” to an emotionally-dependent situation ***and that’s ok*** and it wants to test that the part of you that’s driving the bus will honor that (and doing that with your therapist is actually a safe and low-risk place to practice that). My point is, who knows right now! And - that’s an intriguing unknown.

The impulse to stop therapy seems strong, and you don’t have to have a reason that your head understands right now. You can always go back to your therapist when you’re ready.

And yes, good luck with everything that’s going on right now.
posted by Silvery Fish at 4:31 AM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

Two suggestions: tell her you need a break, eg like 3 months, or 6 months and at the end of that time evaluate if you want to continue.
Second, whether you take a break or end therapy completely, have one last, official closure session to recap what you accomplished and formally end (or pause) therapy.
Both things i have agreed with my current therapist (have been with her since 2+ years), at her suggestion before starting. Especially the last session as formal closure is very helpful to have as part of the relationship. Previously, i either simply dropped therapy or continued beyond what i wanted because ending seemed like the unmentionable Taboo.
I would let her know you need a break, and ask for a final closure session.
posted by 15L06 at 5:21 AM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

You may just have come to the end of what you can productively do working together and you're dreading the weekly session because you sense you're spinning your wheels. It may be that your therapist was a great match for what you needed to work on 3 years ago, and being in a very different point in life you need someone different now (or you need a break entirely.) It's hard and uncomfortable, but you can tell her that you want to wind down therapy and move into final sessions. She doesn't have to agree with you, you can make that decision unilaterally. She may recommend that you have more than one session to conclude your therapy - this is normal and doesn't mean she's trying to talk to you out of terminating therapy. It's a strange thing to conclude such an intimate relationship and sometimes having a bit of breathing room in doing so helps.
posted by superfluousm at 5:52 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

I just went through this with my therapist of 6 years, complete with not being able to really explain why it was time to be done with therapy. In the final analysis (heh) it is that therapy is by its nature disruptive, and having reached a new plateau I want to stay there in peace for a while.

However, I wasn't certain about that originally so I took February off to see how it felt. When we started again in March I took a couple of sessions to process what I had learned in February and then told my therapist I wanted to have three last sessions to wrap things up. The three last sessions were so that I could experience wrapping things up and see what came up for me; it was a good decision as it gave me time to think about where I started, the milestones along the way, where I was now, and what unfinished business I was still processing.

My therapist never fully understood why I couldn't be on the new plateau and continue the therapy process, but it was absolutely clear to me that I wasn't going to experience the now while having an ongoing disruption every week.

At the moment I'm slowly settling back into what I now call my February state of mind and it feels great.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:39 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

the therapist is the one selling you (or your insurance company) the therapy sessions, so there is something sort of unseemly about needing to convince her to allow you to purchase fewer of them. is it simply that you need to be able to articulate your reasoning for your own peace of mind and sense of self-knowledge (understandable), or more about needing to stay on good terms so that she's open to having you return after some period of time away (also understandable), or about feeling like you can't just explain to her that you'll be taking a break unless she both understands and approves?

there is a classic (?) catch-22 where if you think you need permission to pause therapy, that proves you need more therapy. or so some would say. I hope your therapist is not one of those who would make that argument, because I do not find it as cute as they do.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:09 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

You don't need a reason. This does't feel right or useful to you right now. That's your reason. I do recommend doing a closing session, but I would be very explicit and clear: "I have been feeling for a while like I'm ready to stop. I know we've discussed this before, but I have thought about it and I know I do want to stop. I would like to make next week our closing session." If your therapist does not explicitly respect that after you've been clear on the topic, then you may have to resort to email saying you won't be coming back! But try being firm and unambiguous first - probably a good exercise for yourself anyway!
posted by latkes at 6:50 AM on April 28, 2022