[tomatenoir]

There are a lot of termination stories on this board, so I'm interested in hearing from people on the other side - - people who have left therapy voluntarily.

Why did you quit? Did you feel like you reached your goals? Wanted to try another therapist? Felt therapy was stupid and going nowhere?

Do you regret your decision? Do you wish you could go back?

How have your views on therapy changed? If you haven't switched therapists, would you go back to your previous therapist? Would you go back to somebody else?


I left therapy after a year because my therapist refused to hug me, and I knew if I continued I'd only ever focus on why my therapist found me untouchable. I also found his inflexibility more and more grating, especially as I got stronger and felt I had a better grasp of what would be helpful to me. There was a definite tipping point where I realised that continuing therapy would mean hurting myself instead of helping myself.

I don't regret going (I did learn a lot) and I don't regret ending. But six months on, it still hurts that he didn't try to salvage what to then had been a good relationship. It makes me wonder who the hell I was talking to for a year. I don't really understand why I'm still thinking about this, as I wouldn't want to go back. Perhaps it's because I felt he understood me, in a way only a few select people in my life do.

I don't forsee me going back to therapy, short of a crisis. I feel the need to be very private about my feelings now. (Which I suppose is an improvement on having no feelings 1.5 years ago?) The idea of farming out my feelings to a therapist for profit gives me the heebie jeebies, and I want to just make my own way now.

I still understand therapy is right for many people, but I feel like I've outgrown it, at least for now.

[SlumberKitty]

I quit one T this Summer when I was looking for a new T. My former T had gotten sick with MS and I needed to find a new T. I found one on Psychology Today that looked like she would be a good fit for me. Unfortunately she wasn't. She was CBT oriented which isn't a good modality for me. I also found her to be passive-aggressive. She kept saying she was going to hospitalize me for SH which it really wasn't out of control. I found her to be rude--literally she asked me, "Is that why you talk like that?" when I told her about being hearing impaired. I speak fine btw, I had 10 years of speech therapy. Just sounds like I have an accent. I have trouble with certain letters but I'm understandable like 99 percent of the time. It definitely changed my view about CBT. My former T had done some CBT with me but it wasn't so rigid like this T. I knew I wanted to find another T so I did some looking and I'm with the T I have now. Kit

[susannahsays]

I'm about to leave therapy because the therapist is a liar and I hate her.

[ArtleyWilkins]

I’ve actually left therapy three times.

The first time was because I graduated from college and moved. I loved my therapist. He was marvelous, but that’s what happens when you graduate and move. It was another decade before I returned to therapy. I was in a decent place to stop at the time.

The second time was because my therapist moved to take a position in another state. He was also quite good. I was happy for him; it was a great opportunity for him and his family. We were also actually at a good stopping place, so it was another 6-7 years I guess before I entered therapy again.

My last time I left because I truly felt finally completely done with any need for therapy. That therapy lasted the longest (10 years) and I left because I didn’t need the support or assistance of my therapist any longer. He was excellent and we left on very good terms. He’s still in the area and I run into him from time to time. I haven’t been in therapy now for almost 6 years and don’t predict any future need for therapy (not something I would have said earlier in my life).

[piggy momma]

I’ve left a couple therapists - the first I left because he went away for the summer and referred me to someone in his absence. I ended up liking her more so I stayed with her. I was with her for several years and then I had just outgrown her. I moved on to someone else for about half a dozen sessions. She was horrible. I left therapy for a couple years and then started with someone else. He was at the other end of the country so once a week I would fly down in the morning, have lunch with my dad, go to therapy, and then catch the evening flight home. I stopped with him when he got cancer. Took some more time off and now I’m back with guy number one who I first saw.

[Miss P]

For me, I just felt like I had reached a natural end, with current T. In future, I believe I'll go back (with another T) although previous T was a diamond, and helped me out A LOT, there were certain things I felt (rightly or wrongly) she simply hadn't understood. I'm also the kinda person, who's like, once I'm done talking, than that's it. So, nothing wrong...it was just time.

[koru_kiwi]

it's been just shy of two years since i ended six years of therapy with my last T. there are many reasons i ended and i have no regrets or desires to return.

about 4 years into my therapy, my therapy began to stall. i felt stuck and many of my complex truama symptoms were actually worsening then from when i started therapy. i was seriously contemplating suicide as my only option to escaping the excruciating pain of having my traumas continuously reactivated and triggered in therapy, especially in what felt like a turbulent relationship with my T due to my enmeshment and the strong transference becoming stirred up in therapy. my T was also struggling with his own poorly handled countertransference that only made the dynamics worse and quite an unhealthy environment for healing. i had fallen into a perpetual state of hopelessness. due to my desperation, frustrations, and a growing lack of faith and disappointments in my Ts abilities to fully help me, with my husbands assistance, we began researching other means to help me move forward. we discovered neurofeedback therapy was being recommended to help those with CPTSD/developmental trauma. luckily, i was able to locate a highly skilled NFB practitioner who was trained and familiar in methods to help with developmental trauma. after starting with him, i acquired my own NFB set up to use at home and with my NFB practitioner and husbands assistance started doing regular NFB sessions in between my talk therapy sessions.

for me, doing the NFB was incredibly beneficial and effective. it calmed my anxiety and many of my primary trauma symptoms. this in turned helped me to become present and focused in therapy without becoming overwhelmingly dysregulated or dissociated. i made a lot of progress within the year of starting the NFB in my talk therapy. as a result, the calming and emotional regulation from the NFB also helped to start easing the strong transference that was occurring with my T and i could start experiencing therapy from a new perpesctive without the messy transference always getting in the way, leading to rupture after rupture.

the more i personally moved forward with the NFB and my husbands support between therapy sessions, and as i gained more confidence, i started feeling like my T was actually trying to hold me back and hinder my forward 'growth' by keeping me submersed in old wounds. we began to struggled with the power dynamics at this time. it felt like he had his agenda he kept trying to push and revisit instead of letting me direct what i wanted to do and it felt like he didn't trust my instincts on what i wanted or felt i needed to do. around this time, i started realising that really didn't 'need' him like i did prior when the transference was so strong. for a long time in my therapy i feared the thoughts of abandonment, and i no longer had that fear about him abandoning me. i had reached a point where for the first time in my life i finally had love for myself and believed i was worthy of being loved. i no longer feared that i needed him to fulfill me. this was probably the final epiphany of mine to let me know that i was done with therapy.

so when i reached that point, to me, it didn't make sense to keep revisiting the old wounds and constantly being preoccupied with 'me' and therapy. i felt confident enough that i was ready to continue forward in my life without the help of a T. plus, i was paying fully out of pocket for my sessions and after 6 years of sessions (4.5 years for twice a week) i was ready to start putting that money towards my family so we could go away on overseas holidays instead of funding my Ts yearly overseas holidays all the time.

Originally Posted by tomatenoir

How have your views on therapy changed?

after the turbulent transference and my Ts counter transference dynamics that played out in my therapy, i admit, that my views of therapy have changed. overall, my feelings are bitter sweet. there were many benefits and positive results from my therapy and the relationship with my T, but honestly, the unhealthy dynamics that were happening between my T and me were overall more harmful than helpful. i now have my doubts about the therapeutic system overall and feel much of what Ts can offer (in regards to care, time, and understanding) is too limited to fully help those who especially suffer from CPTSD/developmental trauma.

my ex-T and i have remained in contact since i have left, and have had a few casual catch ups since. at the last catch up, we talked some more about our work together, and he actually apologised to me. since i have ended, he is doing some new training and learning more about trauma and how to 'effectively' handle it. he admitted to me that he can now see that when we were working together he did not always handle things properly and would definitly do it differently now. i was pleased to hear his apology. it helped to ease some of the hurts and disappointments that i've had about him as a therapist and has helped me move further forward through my post therapy phase.

It became a useless, expensive distraction with no real benefits. I'm glad that I left then and did not prolong it any more, it was a good self-care decision for me. Therapy, for me, was not more than one of the many things in my life I got curious about tried for a while and a very minor part of what I consider life-long self exploration.

I left because partly I wanted the T to stop me from leaving.
Partly because I wasn't getting anything from it.
Nothing was happening.
In hindsight, the T was useless and not a counsellor then a therapist and leaving was the best thing I Cound have done.

[Anne2.0]

In my early 30's, I left a group therapist/group after about a year, because I thought the therapist was unskilled at leading the group, and felt isolated within it and uncomfortable with her attempts to draw me out. This was about 2 years into an individual therapy with another therapist, who supported my desire to be part of a group but didn't recommend or suggest it in the first place. She did support my decision to quit. About 3 years later, I left therapy because I was done in the sense that I felt I'd resolved my childhood trauma and learned to relate in healthier ways to people, both in intimate relationships and work and friendships. She saw me through the end of a relationship that wasn't right for me, and into the beginning of a relationship that turned out to be right, and I married about a year after my therapy was over.

Fifteen years later, in a new community, I restarted the therapy I am currently in. It was when my child was around the age when I was first abused, and it turns out I had more trauma work to do. That was both deeper but somehow easier than the first round, and although I don't work specifically on trauma anymore, it comes up from time to time. I use therapy now as mostly grief work and focusing on changing specific things in my life and furthering my professional and personal goals.

[CelestialFlame]

I just stopped going, didn’t really see a point to it. Besides I missed a couple times and thought being at my house was better.

[stopdog]

The only thing the therapists were useful for was in having a place to vent about my sick, dying, ultimately dead person. When the first woman started trying to talk again, I decided I no longer wanted to bother with telling her to stop it. I had told her consistently that her talking ranged from completely useless to actively harmful and she, for some unknown reason, thought that had changed (when I asked what I had done to indicate a change -she had no answer). So I simply tossed money down and said I am not coming back and left.

[mcl6136]

First T....resolved some of my issues with my family background and moved on. Hard to terminate!

Second T...left when I moved across the country -- this T had become like a "good parent" figure and it was bittersweet to move on after four years of in-depth therapy.

Third T ....A creepy Freudian who unbuttoned his shirt in session with me...I left with the help of the people on this board.

Fourth T...a "life coach." Nice lady who helped me with finding my feet. This therapy ran its course but she was supportive and positive and I did much good work there

Fifth T...ghosted me and her other clients when she left our city temporarily and then wanted the business back...I said No Thank You.

(Disclaimer: this is regarding my feelings, about my therapy only.)

After 7+ years seeing this t, I left 7 weeks ago tomorrow. In hindsight, I probably should have left a long time ago, except I wasn't ready to because of my attachment to her. And I can't really even say that I should have left sooner because even though I may have stayed mostly for the 'wrong' reasons, we still did really good, deep work together mixed in there with what had become too much friendly-type conversation and the last 'big' piece of work happened in mid to late September. After that we began winding things down. I don't consider any of it a waste though, I think that overall, it all worked just the way I needed it to and I am very thankful and grateful for having had her as my t. Anyway I finally left because I had a dream that very clearly told us it was time (dream work was a big part of my therapy); and when we talked about that dream, ending therapy just felt right to both of us. And almost 7 weeks out it still feels like the right decision.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by ArtieSwimsOn

I don't consider any of it a waste though, I think that overall, it all worked just the way I needed it to and I am very thankful and grateful for having had her as my t.

I believe that nothing is wasted even if it seems painful at the time. I am glad you can look back with the benefit of hindsight and see and feel how the process and the decision was just as it should be. I'm happy for you.

[Nammu]

I left for a number of reasons. I just had a spinal fusion and getting around was hard. My car stopped working and getting it to a shop was hard. I fell into a deep depression and cut everybody off. It was a year and a half before I sought help and my insurance changed and I couldn't go back to the T I had been seeing and I didn't take to the new place I could go, but the pdoc was great and found a cocktail that worked, I didn't really feel the need for therapy anymore.

[WishfulThinker66]

I didn't so much quit as I allowed things to slide. I haven't seen my Therapist since July of last year. I have made an appointment now to see her again but the earliest I can do so is February. That will have been six months then since I saw her.

This is all a shame as I enjoyed our sessions, attending them made me feel better and gave me something to look forward to, and they were starting to be beneficial to understanding my mental health. We were just starting to make a plan of action for recovery.

But then I returned to work, with a very inflexible work schedule and I wasn't able to fit any appointments in.

This is interesting. I suppose I could have asked for time off to make and attend them but I am always afraid of confrontation and/or getting someone angry with me. So I avoid even the remote chance of causing this to happen. Hence, my inability to request for things from my employer like a day off for personal reasons. The ironic thing is that the therapy was to work on this very problem.

[Argonautomobile]

Therapy was useful when I was deeply depressed, unemployed, and living at home past the age most people deem acceptable. I drank literally all day long, felt like a total loser, and wanted to die. Actually, therapy wasn't just useful then, it was a godsend and probably saved my life. But when I stopped being in such a bad place, therapy stopped being useful. Maybe it would have been different with a different T, but there didn't seem to be anything he could do about any lingering discontent once things were objectively good. I stopped feeling any connection to him, didn't find our time together rewarding, and being in treatment seemed to make me think more, not less, about my poor mood. So I stopped going. I try to focus on hobbies and socializing now, which helps a lot.

[autonoe]

Argonaut, I feel I'm in the same position right now. Therapy helped a little with some issues I was having a couple of years ago, but now I find that going just forces me to think about the past and negativity when I might not be doing that if I were focusing on other things.

I've been to a few other therapists, and each time quit for different reasons. The first one was a financial/time decision. The second one, I just didn't click with her. I barely even remember her now. Another one, I felt she was very manipulative and untrustworthy. Therapy has never done what I wanted it to do, and I find most therapists to be disappointing. They're human.

[MoxieDoxie]

I left because I had to move to another state.

Now I left T's in search for other T's because they were not fulfilling a need like the T the other day that forgot about our appointment.

I do not want to leave this T but if I do it is because I pull away and feel I am way to dependent on him and I know that is not healthy.