"How will I know I'm ready to stop going to therapy?"

Ending therapy is a personal decision that both you and your therapist can discuss together or you can decide on your own the time is right. Often therapy sessions are spread out before discontinuing completed to ensure any 'relapses' or attachment triggers are addressed before a final session. The goal of therapy at Reflecting Light Guidance is always to allow you to become your own wise and compassionate therapist and to feel confident that you can manage whatever comes in life with your internal resources. Discussing discharge planning with your therapist leaves the opportunity for a 'positive ending' in which you can review your progress and say goodbye or goodbye for now. Around the 6-9 month mark or during treatment planning sessions, your therapist may engage in a 'discharge planning' discussion. To process on your own, here is a list of exercises to guide your decision:

1. Complete the sentence: "I will know I am ready to end therapy when ."

2. What percentage of my goals would I like to meet before I feel I can "take it from here"?

3. When you think about ending therapy, what feelings arise? Is there fear, excitement, anger ect. Are those different than feelings you expect will arise when you are ready to discontinue?

4. How confident do I feel in my own internal resources? How accurate is that to my day to day experience of using those resources? For example, not feeling ready to rely on own inner resources despite using healthy coping, self-management and wise inner voice to navigate life events successfully for a few months. Or feeling confident but then experiencing setbacks that lead to poor outcomes.