What happens when counselling ends?

 

One of the hardest things as a counsellor is the ending of  therapy. You have worked hard to get to know a client, to make a meaningful connection, to establish a reliable and trusting relationship, then you have to prepare the client and yourself to let go. It's a skill, but can also be a deeply personal experience. At CFC we believe in empowering clients and not creating dependencies, so right from the beginning we are talking to people about ending. It's important to keep that in sight from the start; counselling must not be a crutch, it must enable. The confidential and boundaried nature of our work means we don't keep in touch with clients when therapy finishes. The end we encourage is ideally a very agreed, well planned and definite thing.

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For most of our counsellors and clients, once the optional informal feedback has been visited, that is the final step in the agreed CFC therapeutic journey, though it is often still the beginning of their own self-care and self-awareness voyage. The end of counselling is not the end of looking after your mental health and wellbeing. So what happens next?

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Counsellors must content themselves with not knowing about a client's future. The optimists (which encompasses most of us?) will see a client who is better equipped to deal with whatever life will throw at them next, but it's hard not to wonder and impossible not to care. 

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Clients may put their best foot forwards and spring into life without a backwards glance. They (like their counsellor), may reflect on the work they've done, the learning that has happened. It's rare, but sometimes clients do want us to know how they are getting on after they leave.

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Recently we have heard from a client about how their employment opportunities have opened up after seeming like a brick wall for so long. We've had a client whose recovery was featured on Children in Need. We have had thank you cards, small edible gifts, and even this fantastic watercolour of one of our group facilitators in full swing. All delightful, all gladly received but not expected nor necessarily encouraged. The chance to work with you is what we treasure the most.