Therapeutic endings: Are goodbyes really important?

Endings in therapy can stir up many emotions: resistance, sadness, longing, excitement, hope, among others. We may feel these emotions because the ending with our therapist touches on something deeper: the way we’ve learned to say goodbye throughout our lives.

I was reminded of this recently when I watched a video of actress Cynthia Erivo on the Instagram account AView.FromABridge (where people stand on a bridge and talk into a red telephone, sharing their views on a topic). They reflect that “Human beings in general are not good at saying goodbye” and describe how earlier life experiences were the lens through which they saw all their endings.

These words resonated with me because in therapy, our personal histories come into the room. When we think about or approach the ending with our therapist, it is natural that our previous experiences of endings will impact how we view our therapeutic ending.

While this article touches on goodbyes in the broader sense, the focus is therapeutic endings: what makes them meaningful, what they might stir up in us and their potential for being growthful experiences. 

A difficult process

In therapy, you show vulnerable parts of yourself to another human who gets to know you in a unique way. You will usually build trust together. Often, your therapist becomes an important person in your life. Because of this depth, ending therapy can activate earlier experiences of goodbyes: people moving away, relationships breaking up, loved ones dying.

These resonances of past experiences might stir up questions: am I ready? How will I manage? The finality of the ending might feel unbearable to you. All these thoughts and feelings are natural and can be explored together and supported by your therapist. This is one of the things that makes therapeutic endings distinct from other kinds of goodbyes: the ending itself becomes material for exploration.

Therapeutic endings can feel significant because the relationship itself has held much meaning. You may have shared shame, anger, fear, and moments of emotional closeness with your therapist, who has stayed present with you. For some, this may be one of the first experiences of ending a relationship with clarity and support rather than rupture or disappearance. That’s why endings in therapy might touch the part of us that longs for resolution, safety, or recognition.

Unfinished business

Comedian James Acaster’s sketch “Breaking up with your therapist” always makes me laugh, and it captures something I see often in endings. Acaster jokes that it’s absurd for a therapist to ask for a proper goodbye, comparing it to cancelling any other service, such as broadband. His humour works because many of us instinctively minimise endings that feel tender or vulnerable. It can feel easier to treat therapy like a transaction than to acknowledge that the relationship has mattered. This light-hearted example reveals something important: the contrast between how we think we should approach endings (“it’s not a big deal”) and how we often experience them internally.

In Gestalt therapy, we believe that people generally want to find a sense of completeness or resolution, so we keep an eye out for “unfinished business”, and this often makes endings important. However,  it is not always right to impose what I think of as “complete” or “resolved” on clients.

Perhaps for you, sending an email to say that the work feels complete is enough. Maybe telling your therapist on the day of your session that this will be the last one feels like a good ending to you. Or perhaps you want to take your time and plan the ending. All of these options are valid and reflect the uniqueness of who you are and of your relationship with your therapist. Perhaps you just don’t feel able to say goodbye, and so you leave without communicating. It is OK not to be ready to face goodbyes, and a therapist should always honour where you are with this. 

An aside: When things don’t go to plan

Sometimes you might start therapy, and things don’t go as you expect. Maybe the therapist works differently from how you envisaged, or you simply don’t see eye-to-eye. You realise that therapy, a challenging process under any circumstances, is not working out for you, and you want to leave, but you wonder whether you’ve given it a good enough shot or whether the problem might be you. Perhaps you’ve even had an argument with your therapist.

Communicating how you are feeling can open up possibilities of finding a way through these difficulties together and may lead to a rich reframing of past experiences of ruptures and endings. But if this really does not feel possible for you, it is OK to decide to leave and to communicate this in the way that works for you. 

Endings: An invitation

Having said all of the above, therapeutic endings do offer an invitation to us. We can often be scared of talking about goodbyes, but in therapy, the invitation is to use what is happening between you and your therapist as a way to find out more about yourself. This might be an opportunity to say goodbye in a different way, opening the possibility for finding closure on past experiences or facing your fear of endings. 

While goodbyes in everyday life can be rushed, avoided or messy, therapy offers a chance to slow down and attend to the ending in an intentional way. There are many possibilities for approaching an ending. Perhaps you could look at endings as a theme in your life, and see how these experiences might mirror your expectations around ending with your therapist, or how your experience with your therapist is different. It might feel like an opportune moment to grieve a difficult ending in your past. It could be a chance to plan an ending that feels ideal for you: what do you want to say to your therapist? How do you want to say it? Would a ritual help you say goodbye? There are endless creative possibilities here for you to discuss and plan together.

Ending therapy is a milestone. It can be a time to celebrate growth and bring together the realisations you've had. Cynthia Erivo ends their 'view from a bridge' with wise words: “If we think of goodbyes and exits not as the end of something but the potential beginning of something else, then we might not be so scared”. Ending therapy marks the start of a new chapter, with fresh possibilities and potential. Looking ahead to new experiences on the horizon can be an important part of your therapeutic ending.

So, my invitation is to shape your therapeutic ending to ensure it works for you. Pay attention to the goodbye with your therapist: it’s not necessary to make it long or elaborate, but it can help you make meaning about how you deal with endings in general. This is a chance to notice what arises and find a way of attending to that together, with clarity and care.