This episode is an unintentional wrap up of our string of shows about the therapy process. We started with what to look for in therapy, how to get the most out of therapy, and now we talk about how to break up with a therapist. This is important because you must remember that therapy is about you and not the therapist. If you are not moving forward, you need to look at the possibly you need someone new. There is also the reality that you can “graduate” from therapy because you have put in the effort.
Tune in to see how to Break Up with Your Therapist Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- Other Episodes to Help you through the Therapy Process: 154, 184, and 185.
- This is not only for the client this is also important for a therapist – Have a Plan.
- This show will primarily focus from the client’s perspective.
- Our relationships start with therapists because of a life change and will end with our lives changed.
- You need to remember the therapist is YOUR choice.
- You might need to severe the relationship because it is just not the right fit.
- The change could be due to a move or just needing something different.
- Don’t worry if you have to go back to a therapist for regrouping.
- The last reason is because you are feeling better and ready to move forward.
- Kasie gives you 5 questions you should ask yourself or discuss with your therapist.
- You need to Start Betting on Yourself.
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Episode #193 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to another show of through a therapist eyes. We are pushing up to 200 soon. I believe this is 1
Kasie Morgan: 93. Yeah, 1 93. It’s 1 93. Lucky 1 93. We’ve got
Chris Gazdik: our lady back. Ms. Kasie Morgan for one week only. Thank you for filling in. I appreciate this week here. Yeah, no problem. I’m glad to be here stopping in.
This is, I am Chris Gasdik a mental health and substance abuse therapist since 1995. I have Book out rediscovering emotions and becoming your best self. Another one that I’m making slow progress on with marriage, that’s gonna be fun. So we welcome you to, through a therapist eyes the podcast, like to say you get personal insights directly from a therapist in your own home or personal time in your car, but this is not the delivery of therapy [00:01:00] services in any way.
I learned something that is very specific about the audience helping us out, so, oh wow. On Spotify. When you’re listening to a show, you need to go to the little.dot dot what’s that called
Kasie Morgan: a leader? No. A
Chris Gazdik: dropdown. No, it’s, it’s an ellipse. Yeah. Ellipse. Yeah. Neil has. It’s an ellipse Ellis anyway. Yeah.
the.dot dot, you know, you see that all over the place on computers or whatever you click on the ellipse, the.dot dot, and that’s where you get the five star review. So pause the show, or you don’t even have to pause. The show, just hits a little down arrow button, find the.dot, dot on Spotify. It is really important.
We thank you for listening and really these things help us out a lot. Apple iTunes lets you do a review that really helps out a lot. Like guys, help us make this grow. You have thoughts or just sarcasm statements. Yeah. I, I love
Kasie Morgan: feedback. I just love feedback in general. So [00:02:00] please get on there. Let know absolutely how we did
Chris Gazdik: contact@throughtheyes.com.
Forgot to say for the Facebook live people. If you’re catching this for the first time leave comments at the end of the show, we reply to that. We interact with that. Even if it’s the day or two or whatever, after you leave shows questions, comments, and I’m able to respond to those. So that’s been kind of fun.
Super cool. That’s been fun to do. So catch the YouTube live to see what color dress Kasie is wearing now.
Kasie Morgan: Yes, I’m the lady in red. I is, that’s not red. This is red. This is so not red. Oh my gosh. This is another’s situation. This is like a burnt Redish orange
Chris Gazdik: orange. It is. Go ahead. I’m so confused. Find out
Kasie Morgan: So you’re moving us on.
Yeah, because this is absolutely ridiculous that we’re talking about the color of my dress, but it’s very nice. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It’s nice to be here and thank you so much for letting me create some content for today’s show. Yeah, let me
Chris Gazdik: set it up because yeah, please do. This is, this is a topic that [00:03:00] really I love talking about and I love talking about it with young clinicians, especially.
Thank you because.
Wow. Younger than you who are new. let me qualify. Yes, no age jokes today. It’s getting real for me in like four or five months. Anyway it’s a question. I think Kasie, a lot of people have in their mind and don’t bring up, I think they wonder about, and don’t talk about, and it’s a topic of like, you know, how does therapy end, right?
How long does this take? How does this end? And there are a lot of thoughts about it, but nobody really even talks about it very much in our field. I don’t think either mm-hmm , this is like an unaddressed deal. And, and I think, honestly, the result is a lot of times work gets uncompleted because people sort of don’t know how to end and we don’t really have dialogue about it.
And I know we do a lot of assessment through. The whole, every basically every time, like where’s the goals and how are you doing? But, [00:04:00] but I, I find, so this came, this topic came to me from a real therapy session about four days ago. Yeah. Couple comes in. They say, Hey, you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve talked about this.
They even were using their EAP sessions, so they had one more EAP session and we were thinking, and, and we wanna, we want to meet today and, and end, and we know we can always come back. Mm-hmm if we need to. And, and, and as a matter of fact, I think we will want to do that in several months, you know, and, and that launched in us into like, setting up the session where we’re able to bookend things.
How often do we get to bookend therapy experiences with people that we are working. With or does it just drop off? Right, right. Yeah. Like this is a whole area,
Kasie Morgan: right? Yeah. That’s why today’s segment is called, breaking up with your therapist, right. Catchy. Yeah. It’s super catchy, super, super catch. And so but before we get started, I do wanna acknowledge our current event.
I know you always like to do current events. So yeah. I noticed that I did wanna say one thing, which was, you know as of the 21st, our hearts and thoughts [00:05:00] and prayers go out to the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan, they did have a magnitude earthquake of 5.9. That’s like huge on the Richter scale.
Yeah. It’s huge. There’s been at least a thousand casualties. I don’t know what the number total is today. Good Lord. But just from a mental health perspective, a quick push towards resiliency, you know, Fred Roger said, you know, look for the helpers. And even though these are scary times, and it’s hard to see any resolution, but look for those who are helping and, and, and hang on to them because they’re gonna help get you through.
And I know there’s nothing that we can do to talk about taking away the loss of life or anything like that. But we really are thinking about you on the side of the
Chris Gazdik: world. Yeah. You know, and, and I grew up with Fred Rogers. Yeah. So for those that may not know him, I don’t know if he’s world renowned. I’m sure that he probably is like, dude, he was before his time.
Mm-hmm what a, what a quote, that, that is, if that’s a quote from Fred Rogers. Yeah. You know, when I was a kid, he taught us deal with your emotions. It’s okay to have them, you know, is this a happy day? And he’s taken off his shoes and be a [00:06:00] neighbor, you know, being in a good neighbor. And is this a sad day?
What do you do with your mad feelings? You know, it’s, he, he was really ahead of his time, way back in the seventies and eighties in, he approached
Kasie Morgan: topics too, like segregation and things like that did. And so I thought that was wonderful, but you know, look for the helpers, look for the helpers. And so even though we are more than half a world away, I just wanna know like want everyone to know out there that if you need help, like, you know, we can get resources, whatever the case may be.
So if for some reason you’re listening to this podcast and you’re near. Where that destruction took place, please reach out and we’ll get you some
Chris Gazdik: resources. So, yeah, that is a big yeah, that’s a big event. Thank you for that. Yeah.
Kasie Morgan: Good, good deal. So not to jump too far ahead, but how do we break up with therapists?
That’s gonna be what we talk about today. And so, you know, you may have heard that song back in the day, right? Called breaking up as hard to do by ni Sadaka. And Sadeka however you pronounce that. And in that song, the lyric state, don’t take your love away from me. Don’t you leave my heart and [00:07:00] misery, if you go, then I’ll be blue.
Cuz breaking up is hard to do and so I, I really kind of banked on those lyrics when I was framing today’s content, because I think it is a difficult place and space to get into with somebody, especially from a professional standpoint, when you’re seeking out a service like counseling to kind of get to a place where you’re ready to say.
I think I’m ready to move on. And I think that we’re gonna talk about throughout the course of tonight’s podcast different and various scenarios where that is the case and what you want
Chris Gazdik: to do. Let me draw a distinction. Yeah. I, I, I told you there’s a few things that I wanted to pop in for sure. And this is one of them.
So before the mics came on on the Facebook live, I think we were, we were just chatting. Yeah. And I, I wanna draw a distinction slash point out and I’m gonna be bold. I, I think for a moment and say that, I think that. I find therapists making a mistake here. I, I really do [00:08:00] multiple times, many times, I, I will say throughout the years, I’ve had people talk about their prior therapy experiences.
And they said how shocked they were when the therapist just came in and said, oh, I, you know, I think that you know, I think we’re, we’ve accomplished some things. Here’s where we started. Here’s where we are. And I think this is a good stopping place. And I’m like that that’s a mistake more times than not.
And, and let me tell you why, cuz I feel like what happens is in anybody that’s working with me in a therapy session. You’ll know. Now, if you hear this episode, I’m gonna give my tell. I will feel stuck sometimes. Right? Like what are we doing? What are we working on? Like as the professional, as the professional.
Yeah. And, and wanna, and so what I’ll do when that’s the case is I hold myself accountable and my tell here is I’ll ask the person. So what’s the most important thing that you think we need to be feel focused on right now? Like let’s, let’s evaluate where we’re [00:09:00] at. Let’s look at what we’re doing and tell me what, what what’s really important to you in life at this point, right?
The interpretation is I’m stuck and I don’t know what we’re doing. And so I, I will reframe it that way to begin to make sure, cause I wanna be productive when we’re working. I don’t want to be just hanging out and you know, doing stuff. So we’re always evaluating goals. We’re always evaluating a process.
But I think what happens is a therapist feels stuck and says, well, because we’re stuck or I’m stuck. And I don’t know what we’re working on. We’re done. And that’s, that’s not a termination process. And oftentimes that totally catches the client by, by sh shock, really? Definitely by, by, by
Kasie Morgan: surprise. Yeah. And so I, I think that that is so interesting that you bring up that point because when I was approaching this topic, I approached it as how I see it should happen, which is being completely client driven.
And so I wasn’t even approaching the topic tonight from the clinical standpoint, like from the point of the clinician, which [00:10:00] sometimes we do terminate depending on situations. Yeah. But for the most part, the way my theoretical orientation plays out, all of this is client driven. So tonight what we’re gonna discuss is as the client, how do you approach the topic of termination with your therapist?
Right? Not the therapist approaching termination with the client. So because
Chris Gazdik: yeah, that, that,
I almost feel like sometimes we do a disservice when we turn it around. Yeah. You know, for real like it, I would rather evaluate, how are you feeling about this process? What are, what are, what is important to you? Mm-hmm where is our goal evaluation? Listen, sometimes a therapy relationship is very, and I have this in my spiel when I meet with people for the first time.
Sometimes it’s 5, 7, 8 times. It’s very short term. I have no problem with that. A lot of times it’s much, much longer guys. PE I, people can be in, in a therapy experience for whatever it takes. I mean, that’s our response when the client asks, right. Well, how long is this gonna be? Well, it takes however long it [00:11:00] takes, you know, and that can be many months measured by 1824 or however long.
It, it, it might be, yeah, for sure. Years at, at times, because we’re dealing with really. thorny tricky saddled problems, such as a lifetime of family of origin and a substance abuse family, for instance, just
Kasie Morgan: random. Yeah. And, and, and as problems evolve, I mean, as therapists we are charged with knowing our own scope, which we’ll talk about in a little bit too, but as, as issues arise and things evolve there may be things within those therapy sessions that come up that are beyond our scope of practice that we do need to refer out.
Oh yeah. So we will standard. Yeah. We will broach that with the person, but then we also talk about the comeback process like that. Then if you need follow up post this like specialized visit to. Like eating disorder clinic or whatever, then you come back here and that’s what happens. And so we, we reconnect that relationship.
So I
I’ve
Chris Gazdik: referred people to intensive outpatient programs. Absolutely. In the middle of a, of an individual [00:12:00] outpatient therapy relationship, you go to rehab and then you come back, you know, here, when you’re through that process. AB absolutely. So, yeah. So bottom line, if you are thinking this, ask your clinician.
Yeah.
Kasie Morgan: Let’s bounce it off of each other, right? If the person is a responsible professional, they will openly talk with you about this because this is not personal for us. Shall we
Chris Gazdik: figure this out together? We
will
Kasie Morgan: endeavor to figure this
Chris Gazdik: out together. So I don’t even think I said that up on the front end.
Did I? I missed it. That’s gotta be the
Kasie Morgan: first time man off the game. Emotional experience. What happens when we start. That is, we started late today, we to, and figure this out together. But yeah, so one of my bold statements tonight, and this is what I really believe to be true is that our relationships and I say our, because I also see a therapist, I will openly tell you that our relationships with our therapists begin typically with a life change and will also end with our lives changed.
That’s a cool statement. Say that again? Yeah. Our relationships with our therapists typically [00:13:00] begin. With a life change and we’ll also end with our lives changed.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s amazing. Yeah. So it’s such an honor to do this
Kasie Morgan: work. Isn’t it right. It’s such a calling and such an honor. And so that’s why I wanna give honor to everyone who is in a current therapy relationship, or is even seeking one out now to tell you that as the client one, you have power of.
But two, you need to feel empowered in that relationship because the dynamic of the therapist, client relationship is not a power dynamic. That’s just Sayers, right? Yeah. It’s just a, a shared ethic to try to, to be the helper, like to go back to Fred Rogers, to be the facilitator yeah. Of your personal, emotional growth and us facilitating that process is really dependent on you and how you see yourself.
And so, you know, yes. You come to therapy, typically the club, because there is a life change that has occurred for you. Most of the time, you’re not interacting with a therapist because everything is [00:14:00] going great. Right. Like, Hey, why do you need therapy for, I just wanna tell you about how. My life is right now.
However, I do have
Chris Gazdik: people come in their initial presenting problem simply for emotional growth. Sure. Like how cool is that?
Kasie Morgan: Right? Yeah, that’s really cool, but it, but it, but it’s still a life change. Like we’re, we’re talking about a career change. Maybe you came into some money. I don’t know, like maybe you had some really positive things, but it’s still a life change.
And so as those roles develop and shift, so do our relationship with our therapist. So there are several types of. Breakup interactions, I guess you would say , that can occur throughout the course of therapy. And Neil brought up before we got started, that I’ve mentioned many times throughout the show that you do have provider choice.
So if you are going to a therapist and you are getting that therapeutic relationship started and you feel like this is not a good fit, you, you need to have that conversation. Honestly, and openly and early with that therapist on here, I was like, not the right fit, kind of like trying [00:15:00] on clothes. Yeah.
You know, if you really wanna go with that analogy, really think about it. You know, when you put on a shirt, a dress, whatever the case may be, if it’s a little ill fitting one. You don’t feel very comfortable in that. Do you and two, it doesn’t look right.
Chris Gazdik: You know what the average, well, let me back up, used to be, I don’t know what it is now.
I think I tried to look it up and couldn’t find it and it’s definitely changed. But years ago, anyway, do you know what the average length of a typical therapy relationship was?
Kasie Morgan: Three days? Didn’t you say? Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. Yeah. I said that
Kasie Morgan: before too. Yeah. Three sessions
Chris Gazdik: doesn’t make sense. No, no. Not, not much at all.
And I think that’s a lot of, without realizing it, this issue that we’re talking about tonight is a part of that dynamic and not getting what they thought they would get, not getting the feedback they wanted. Thought thought would, would it just didn’t meet their expectations. That’s because quite possibly you didn’t have good mix right.
In the [00:16:00] beginning. Right. That happens. You have to have a connection with your therapist.
Kasie Morgan: Right. And it, and it’s a very professional connection. It’s not like love connection. Right. But definitely right. But definitely thinking through like, what are some things that you want to know before you go in there?
And that can be an important step even prior to meeting your clinician? Like, what do you want to know about them? Sometimes reading the bio online can be helpful in that process. And then also noting things about their interaction pattern, how they make you feel when they come in, when you come into the room, cuz some people are very fact driven.
Some people are very relationship driven and that just depends on the orientation of the therapist and the adaptability of the situation. Just so you
Chris Gazdik: know, therapists generally can read some of that and I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna put people into, you know, the way I work best. Like I pick that up and we talk about that sometimes.
And you know, if you operate by homework, you know, we do that. If you operate by more logic driven, we kind of look at that. Like we, we work with that too. So it’s a, a both
Kasie Morgan: ways. Yeah, it can be a [00:17:00] fluid process, but I think that, you know, you can get to know somebody pretty well just by listening to what they have to say in their introductory and how they make you feel when they, when you walk into the room.
I think what’s important here when you’re looking at severing, a counseling relationship that isn’t the right fit is for you to know that you are not responsible. For the feelings of the therapist at all. yeah. So at all, I know that we’re human beings and we feel responsible for the feelings of people sometimes, but you are not responsible for the therapist feelings.
Chris Gazdik: You ever been fired Kasie from, from a client. Oh, from a client. Yeah, I have.
I
Kasie Morgan: don’t think so,
Chris Gazdik: honestly, really? Yeah. I’ve,
Kasie Morgan: I’ve been fired. I mean, I think people haven’t come back. I mean, so I don’t know if you would call, so you don’t know.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. A lot of times you don’t, you don’t even know it.
Kasie Morgan: I’ve been ghosted. Oh, ghosted. Yeah. I have been ghosted fired. Yeah. laughed behind. I’ve been left behind.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: there’s, that’s my point. There is like, yeah. [00:18:00] I, I, I, I don’t think it happens very often for me either, but I have had a conversation or two over the years where, you know, people have been willing and able and to your point, it’s very okay to say that. And, and they’ve asked me, is there, do you know of anybody that would be more in this kind of realm or that kind of realm?
You know, they, they wanted somebody younger or older or whatever, and that that’s totally. You know, it, it, it, isn’t your responsibility to feel responsible for, you know, we have thick skin, we’ve been, you know, we can handle it. It’s not, it’s a professional engagement and it’s the therapist’s responsibility to, to, to process that.
Kasie Morgan: Right. And the therapist shared code of ethics is to do no harm. And if we’re not the right fit for you, that’s fine. Then that’s, you know, that’s more than fine because the last thing we’d wanna do is make the relationship harmful to your mental health in some way. Right. And so we, we choose to do no harm in that regard.
And I think it is a good place to practice a skill of [00:19:00] confrontation without it being really. Combative. So being able to feel empowered to go in and say like, you know, this is not the right fit for me. Can you suggest someone else? That’s a really good way to practice that skill too, even in like that protected environment, but what you want to try to do have a situation is to have a voice and a avoid ghosting.
You know, ghosting is like, we get it a lot and that’s fine. And by ghosting, I mean just disappearing. Yeah. And never calling back. And you have all these scheduled sessions and you don’t show up for them. . Yeah, but I think, but I think what I want to empower anybody listening tonight to do is to have a voice just to say, this is my preference.
This is not my preference.
Chris Gazdik: And just to tune in, so you’ll understand, this is like a segment on a type of ending where it’s right in the beginning. Yep. We’re also gonna spend a lot of time talking as well about when you have a relationship. How does that work? Absolutely. Later on through the relationship.
So there was multiple types
Kasie Morgan: [00:20:00] member. Right. And, and it’s perfectly okay to say, it’s not me, it’s you? And that’s okay. We will take it. Right. Like, you know, we’re ending relationships. And we often say, oh, it’s not, it’s not, you it’s me. No, in this situation, it’s definitely us. So put it on us. It’s fine. We can take it as the therapist.
I, that, that.
Chris Gazdik: That phrase always has driven me crazy though. You know, it’s like
Kasie Morgan: what a cop
Chris Gazdik: it is, is so like, what are the issues then? So if it’s you, what are you talking about? I, I, that you had to throw that into the, to the breakup
Kasie Morgan: talk, I guess. Absolutely. Just, just wait till I get to the dear John letter.
No, I’m just kidding. Oh, wow. Just joking. So another type that I’ve encountered before that people often get nervous about is severing a counseling relationship due to a move or needing something different. So this is not necessarily in the early beginning. That’s interesting, but that maybe you’re moving away or maybe your job changed and your insurance changed and I’m no longer an, a network provider or insurance company.
Yeah. And so [00:21:00] it really has nothing to do. With the counselor themselves, but it has everything to do with logistics. Like it’s just the logistics,
Chris Gazdik: which one of the factors here is this can be sudden
yeah.
Kasie Morgan: And it can be abrupt and people can tell you without telling you, you know, and then all of a sudden, like you get a new insurance card and we run it and then you’re like, whoa, like this is not, this is not working for me even financially.
So, you know, sometimes I think that can be the case or maybe you’re needing something different, like a more specialized type of treatment. Would you say,
Chris Gazdik: interestingly, that the first type that we just talked about, people struggle greatly to engage the discussion. Mm-hmm this second type. I think of three.
Is that what we’ve got Uhhuh? This second type. I feel like, I wonder what you think if it’s just much easier to address mm-hmm do do oh yeah. Cause as I, as I’m thinking about that and I, I don’t usually think of this type of termination when I think of, you know, therapy [00:22:00] relationships. Ending and whatnot.
Th this type. I, I, I I’ve had many conversations about that way. Mm-hmm I mean, I go through my brain and was just like, oh yeah, well that happens. And that happened. And that happened. And I think people are way more comfortable with this one than the other one. And I think it’s probably because of the confrontation type.
What,
Kasie Morgan: what do you see with that? Yeah. I, I think it’s definitely based on like the locus of control. Right. So, and what I mean by that is that right? And so I was gonna explain that since I know you were, I just always poked. You do poke me a lot for that, but, but what I mean by that is. These are happenstances that are well beyond your control.
Yeah. Like change of job, change of insurance loss of job pandemic, you know, like whatever the case may be. Those are things that are well beyond your control. And so it’s a lot easier to kind of shift responsibility on that problem. Yeah. To say, oh, you know, because of this, what can we do now? I can’t do this anymore.
Yeah. And then we can move it forward. And then it’s like, everybody’s easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Right. I’m coming up with a lot of phrases tonight. [00:23:00] It’s catchy. Yeah. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. It’s a lot harder to look at someone. I think when everything about the relationship ending is within your control and.
You’re telling them, I, I don’t wanna do this anymore, or I can’t do this anymore, or this is not the right fit for me. Right. Because it is confronting someone on a one-on-one basis about you versus the process or you versus them or whatever.
Chris Gazdik: I lost my job. I’m not gonna hurt your feelings, right? Yeah.
It’s yeah. It’s
Kasie Morgan: profoundly different. It is profoundly different. And so I think that’s when we do find people that kind of make up excuses sometimes too. And, and, you know, that’s your process, that’s your process? No judgment here, but I think that’s what we do find sometimes like I have a sick relative, or I just can’t do it right now, instead of just saying, this is not working for me.
Yeah, but I do think the second type is far easier and I do have a lot more of those types of conversations. Yeah. Versus the first type, which is, this is not the right fit for me. Yeah. But [00:24:00] both are equally as important and equally as okay. And well, within your right as the client to do. And I really feel like it is a charge in your healthcare to be able to have that power to say, you’re not the provider for me.
Yeah. I
Chris Gazdik: love your where did I just read it? Your, your quote, right. Like take charge of your health. Yeah. This is not personal. This is progressive. Yeah. I mean that’s what do you, what do you mean
Kasie Morgan: by that? Right. So first and foremost, and I think I’ve said it many times on here. The way I see mental health is a combination or a culmination or an integrative process of health.
So to me in my mind, this is just as important to take charge of as you would, your diabetes, your high blood pressure, any of that stuff. You know, when we go into a primary care physician’s office and they’re not giving us the answers that we’re looking for, we get a second opinion. We seek, we seek outside resources.
We speak up to them, know this is not correct. This is what I’m feeling. Here’s my symptoms. Please treat what’s going [00:25:00] on. But when it comes to mental health, it’s already so stigmatized in the field of healthcare, right? That it, I think it puts an extra layer of pressure on people to kind of shy away or back down from.
Speaking up to what they need or where they’re gonna go or how they’re gonna get there. So this is taking charge of your overall health to say like, Hey, I, I need specialized treatment for this problem. Do you think you can handle that? And if not, can you please just refer me to somebody that can,
Chris Gazdik: you know, and I’ve had that happen or discussions like that.
But, but what’s interesting is I’m just, I’m thinking about this sort of, you know, bigger picture, you know, having done this since 95, the first several, many years, 10, 15, like that’s a different, I, I, I think that’s a new thought for me, like comparing it to somebody coming in saying, I want to do this with this issue in my life.
Like, are we, I wonder [00:26:00] out loud becoming more culturally aware of the psychology and the mental health realities that we’re purposeful about. Like, I talk about a lot, be purposeful about. Making friendships be purposeful. Mm-hmm about checking in on your trauma, be purposeful about fill in the blank, mental health feeling an emotion psychology realm, right?
Yeah. And, and I don’t think that people, I mean, the conversations that I’ve had in that vein dude, like that’s only in the last 10 years or so. I, I never had those conversations prior to yeah. Does that make sense? No, I think it makes a lot of sense. That’s that’s a new developing. Cultural shift.
Kasie Morgan: It really is because I think we’ve shifted away from an understanding of what’s wrong with you, cuz that used to be kind of the perception of people.
Yeah. When we talked about mental health, oh, there’s something wrong with you. And then we all became trauma informed. Right? And so it was about, oh, this is about what happened to you. But now I [00:27:00] think the cultural shift that we see is, is resiliency focused. And I think that it’s looking more at. What’s right about you and expanding that into like building community and getting back out there and getting yourself back into the game.
And I think for so long, we sidelined people and said, you know, let’s explore your trauma and let’s do this. And we unpacked all these boxes because we recognized there were boxes to unpack, but we never closed them back up and we just kind of left them open. Right. And so now it’s like, what do you do with that information?
And that’s exactly what you’re talking about is being purposeful in connecting those dots. And the same thing is true when you’re interfacing with anybody in your, on your healthcare team. Like you have to be purposeful in those interactions to be able to understand what is going on with you and how to check in on that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You know, what, what, what comes a lot of times, I think in people’s psyche, when they begin a therapy relationship is. You know, demic, [00:28:00] especially marital counseling, right? Mm-hmm God, it just drives me nuts, but it’s true. Bottom of the ninth inning down by seven runs, you know, one batter out two, three count, like, whatcha you gonna do for us?
Cause we’re in the last stage, right? Last step. Yeah. This is the, this is the final attempt at saving my mental health or my marriage. Right. Or, you know, I don’t know what I’ve tried. Everything else. What now? What do I do? I mean, I don’t think that happens as much and definitely still happens, but this is a different shift, a different mm-hmm progressive.
That’s why I like, yeah. The word that you use, you know, the, this is a progressive reality. which reminds me good, good point to put this in another factor that I think about with terminating services, years and years ago in a training I, I, it was a gestalt therapy training seminar, really not even a, a course, and it was several.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. One of the things that really stuck to me that this guy said or explained, you know, gestalt therapy is a here and now format. Yeah. Theory model. [00:29:00] You’re very much mindful you’re in the present and you work with that. Yeah. Right. And so. From that model, his thinking developed that people do therapy work in stages throughout the life cycle.
Mm-hmm right. So, you know, as a teenager, you might engage a therapy experience for four months or whatever, and then you stop and you rest, and then you are looking at getting married and you do another therapy experience on those same issues. And then you, you know, for whatever weeks or months, and you stop and you rest and you go through cycles of this over your life cycle, because let’s face it, this stuff that you learned, or, you know, created cognitive biases over to use crazy terms, right?
Scientifically your family of origin created trauma bias and all this, whatever you’re gonna have to touch on that a period of time mm-hmm or two, and you take a break and you come back and you take a break and you come back. It’s a, it’s a cool [00:30:00] way of thinking about. resiliency development.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, absolutely.
And the progression of therapy in general. Right. And I think that you bring up a good point. You can always come back, right? Like, let’s say, like, you break up with your therapist you’re and I have that happen all the time. Like, man, I got it wrong time to go back,
Chris Gazdik: you know, listen, I have that all the time.
That is a very, very regular
Kasie Morgan: experience. Yeah. And that’s why I never really call it breaking up. I, I call it going on maintenance. That’s why I said we want this
Chris Gazdik: title
Kasie Morgan: yeah. But I mean, it’s true. Like I just, I just put people on maintenance, right? Like that’s what I tell them. You’re on maintenance now we’re on maintenance phase.
Yeah. But you created the title.
Chris Gazdik: How do you
Kasie Morgan: break up? well, that’s because this is client driven, not therapist driven. Ah, and so that’s bringing us back a little bit. Right? Gotcha. So the other part of this is sometimes, and probably the majority of the time things go well in your therapeutic relationship with your therapist and your counselor.
And, and you start to understand the processes of things about your family of origin, whatever the case may be, your cognitions improve. [00:31:00] And, and it is time to, to move forward. And so it’s kind of recognizing when are you approaching the time where maybe you do need to, to take a rest or you do need to, you know, kind of move forward in your, the trajectory of your own life and do it on your own for a while.
And so I came up with five questions to kind of caution yourself. Yeah. Here’s
Chris Gazdik: a word of caution first, before we go into the questions, kind of goes opposite to the mistake that I feel like therapists do make Which is why you’re gonna bring this up with your therapist and you might be going through these questions and thinking about it, open it up as a discussion rather than a declaration.
Mm-hmm a lot of the times because we go through an emotional process myself as well, right? Like I’m working on something and I feel like, you know what? I got this and I’m done. And you know, the alcoholic’s only been sober for 10 days. , you know, that’s no, not quite ready yet, man. That’s undercooked. So I guess my [00:32:00] point is it’s a little rare.
Kasie Morgan: It’s a little rare bleeding,
Chris Gazdik: bleeding, still out. It , I like raw meat too. Well, maybe medium rare, but like you can get stuck. You can get fearful. Mm-hmm you can get uncomfortable. You can be insecure about that process. Something’s changing and you feel a little bit scared about that. So there there’s definitely things that go on that you don’t want to misinterpret.
Hey, let’s just prematurely end this thing, cuz it’s getting real. Like, so there’s a word of caution in that just in your own examining and I’m sure your therapist will help you out with that. So bring it up as a discussion, not as a, as a, as a
Kasie Morgan: statement. Well, I would even boldly say that if you’re going to a therapist who is doing their job effectively, they are consistently checking in, in that regard right.
In their own therapeutic way to make sure that we’re kind of still on the same track. Yeah. And on the same page. But. Again, as the client, if there is [00:33:00] a time where you feel like you just want to end, even if the therapist thinks it’s premature, it, it is client driven. If you do, do not want to come back, you do not have to.
I mean, that is true, but just know that that’s an element of ghosting, right. Break up with us, gently, gently break up with us. But, but you know, what, if things are going well, like how do you check in with yourself? And I think this is a good measure, these five questions that I came up with. And so the first question I would.
Like kind of employee to explore would be what was my, why from the beginning? Right. So what was my, why initially we talked about how, you know, we engage with therapists, our relationships with our therapists begin typically with a life change and also end with our lives changed. So what was our, why from the beginning?
So the initial goal, what was the, what was the goal that we had in mind that we kind of started with in therapy? Cuz usually the therapist will kind of start with the end in mind. Like what do you want your life to look like at this point? Like [00:34:00] where are you now and where do you want to be? And how do we get there?
And, and when therapists are working with clients, it’s not about the goals we believe you should have. It’s about the goals that you want to achieve right in session. And
Chris Gazdik: so almost a hundred percent of the time when I’m introducing myself, I will say, how is life? Like, how do you want life to be like, and we.
Figure that out together. Yeah. Moving that forward. Can I add something though? Please do. What was your why and what is your, why mm-hmm right. Yeah. Which, which gets at that constant process that I think you and I do that all the time. Like, what are we accomplishing? I mean, you know, what, what are we after?
Where, where are we at in this person’s life in this process? Like we’re constantly evaluating those goals. So I would invite you as well to come into that process in a very direct way and think what was my why and what is my current, why? Because that will change
Kasie Morgan: sometimes. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
And, and to keep that momentum motivation [00:35:00] moving forward, do you have. Those elements with you to be able to keep that Trion moving forward. You know, I, I work with a lot of people that are in recovery and from various things, whether it’s substances, gambling, things like that. And you know, they talk a lot about going into sober living or going into other environments where they’re kind of protected.
Like inpatient stays intensive outpatient, things like that. And that was a protected environment, but then you feel great and you feel really motivated. But you move back home and your situations come back in. Gosh. And that flooding occurs and we’re right back where we started, you know? Right. And so do you have the protective factors in place, which is an important part of that conversation as you’re approaching termination?
What protective factors and by protective factors, I simply mean like supports. Like what are you gonna do when you have a bad night? What are you gonna do when it’s three o’clock in the morning and you’re having an urge to do something like get online and [00:36:00] spend $3,000 on deck furniture, which may or may not have happened in my life before
of a therapist. Yeah. Wow. That could be my own show. Oh, there you go. Audience. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: that’s what happened last week. Yeah,
Kasie Morgan: I guess about it. Yeah. But I think all of those things go into this process. So my second question is like, did you make the intended progress? Towards your goal. And I wanna throw this out there because I think sometimes when we state goals, we look at goals as a destination, like where we want to land, but what I want everybody to remember, and I would like to hear your thoughts on this too, is that therapy really is more about the journey and not necessarily just the destination.
Now, sometimes we arrive at the destination, but it’s really about re-understanding your emotions. Right. And good plug, figuring that out
Chris Gazdik: together. It [00:37:00] is right. Like that, that is why I came up with a title of the book. I couldn’t agree more. I mean, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a cliche, you know, everyone’s heard this phrase before.
It’s about the journey and not the destination. Thanks. But seriously that’s so. on point mm-hmm and I, and I, I get, listen, I get like passionate and, and in this process that I enter into with people as a therapist with their, their lives, like, dude, I don’t take that lightly at all. Mm-hmm like that, that processing.
And along the way, like, look, I’ve had, I’ve had therapy relationships where we’ve been working on some things very purposefully for months, few, several months, and then something totally new comes up and they never knew they had endured a traumatic sexual event in their life. Right. It comes out like it comes up because they begin to manage their emotions now much more grounded and solidly [00:38:00] and mother nature.
You’re subconscious, if you will realizes, oh, well we are doing better. So we can maybe at this point we can handle this other stuff. Yeah. Whereas before you didn’t even remember it happened. Yeah, right. That’s the power of this journey that we’re talking about.
Kasie Morgan: Right, right. That is the power of the journey.
And I think the, the skills that you ascertain through therapy are so applicable to so many different situations in your life. That that’s really what this process is, right? Like that journey to, to understand, you know, your thoughts and the connection to the, to your feelings and what those behaviors look like that when those thoughts and feelings get ramped up, what, what is it about yourself that you need to work on?
You know, as a therapist myself, I even know that. I have all the tools. Right. And I know all the names for all the tools, but I still yell at my kids sometimes. Oh, heck right. I still yell. And like, I don’t wanna yell. I don’t wanna be that person. Like, I, I want to [00:39:00] be a nurturer. I want to be able to get in there and build them up.
And, but, but situations in life and emotions and thoughts and life and dogs and whatever, like it’s a real situation. Did you have a dog issue? Oh, God don’t even get me started. he threw up like four times, like, because he ate he’s brutal. A fruit snack rapper. You told me anyway, when he was throwing up, I could hear the plastic.
It was
Chris Gazdik: awful. So bad, so bad.
Kasie Morgan: Oh, that’s too much. Sorry. That was way too much information friends. Oh, but yeah. So I think it’s vitally important. The work that you put in with your therapist, because you are doing the work as the client,
Chris Gazdik: you brought it back for me. I, I wanted to, to take the fear out of this too.
Yeah. there’s a, there’s also a natural fear, which might trigger a, a premature termination, if you will. Mm-hmm boy, what you just said is you’re gonna be in my head and yo that’s scary. Like sure. I don’t I don’t much like [00:40:00] that. Well, listen, you started off Kasie talking about this is a client driven thing.
Absolutely. We talked about this being a purposeful process. Guess who’s in charge. We’re saying be empowered for yourself. You are doing this guys is the point here, right? Like you are developing this skills. You are developing the ability you’re at your own pace in your own way. Like in some ways don’t, don’t you feel Kasie?
I wonder. Do you, do you feel like you’re just along the ride, along the journey of that somebody’s invited you in on?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Let me tell you, so The, I was gonna say, I’m not an overtly emotional person, but I, I mean, I’m pretty emotional most of the time, but it’s usually not crying. Okay. Here’s the Facebook lively my face
Yeah, but I think like, for me, the pinnacle of my career is when I sit in my therapy chair and I hear someone. Like being a little further along in their [00:41:00] journey, start to talk to me about all the realizations that they have about connecting the dots. Oh yeah. About how they went back about a skill that they implemented about how they’ve progressed, right.
About how, not only are they doing the skills, but they’re now teaching other people in their family. Like, Hey guys, like let’s, let’s get connected to this because this family of origin stuff is a real thing. And, and we need to be talking about this and there needs to be some boundaries here that were never set by mom and dad or whatever the case may be.
Yeah. You go talk to their sibling. And to me, that is the pinnacle of my career because when you see someone have those growth steps and have those progress steps, there’s nothing better than to know that what started off as a simple, like a simple interaction and goal has led to self-discovery and
Chris Gazdik: self-actualization, you know, I think it’s one of the reasons why I even started this whole platform of through a therapist’s oh man eyes, right?
Yeah. Like for real, you know, Neil, we oughta take this [00:42:00] in little segment and, and capture it because it’s a very powerful reality, right? Like, yeah. The, through a therapist’s eyes platform to a certain extent in the whole books that I want to write. And the, the reason why I wanted to share the experiences through my eyes is because I see so much of that.
And I just feel like if people could, could, could, could envision that and, and encapsulate that it scales up so that the, the benefits of one person’s. Therapy experience that I was able and honored enough to be a witness of can explode out, like through my eyes, to the world, through our eyes, Kasie. Yeah.
That, that, that can affect in growing mental health awareness on a cultural, or I’m sorry to be dramatic, but literally like on a world level
Kasie Morgan: yeah. On a global basis.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s a powerful reality that, that you start when you’re doing this. I mean, it’s a butterfly
Kasie Morgan: effect. It is. It really is. And so my third question it kind of relates to that, like when you’re [00:43:00] considering having that conversation with a therapist about termination, are you gonna exit this relationship in a better space than you found yourself when you began?
Ooh, that’s a good question. Yeah. Okay. And what goes into that process? Like it’s thinking about these questions. I made them. That’s awesome. I literally made them up. Yeah, that’s impressive. Thanks. Say that question again. So will you exit the relationship in a better space than you found yourself in when we began?
Yeah. That’s a good question to ask. Yeah. And I thought it’s really reflective, cuz it’s gonna reflect on your growth. It’s gonna reflect on the restorative work you have done with the therapist. And I think really it kind of goes back to, do you feel like you’re in a space that you can regain control over your emotions?
Should things get out of order again? And I think if you can answer yes to that, then you do have that instilled sense of hope that I can move forward and I can do this us. . Yeah, so,
Chris Gazdik: so I was just, sorry. I was looking at the computer screen. I, okay. I thought you were
Kasie Morgan: looking at the camera. I thought you were [00:44:00] gonna talk.
I was go like a whole Chris getting ready? Go on a whole Soli. I was like, oh, here goes, says ham. His Hamilton moment. Go ahead. Well, Miranda, like go, go for it, boy. Okay, so anything to add there before we go into our fourth question? No, we’re good. Yeah. Okay. So the fourth question I said is, is what is your plan now for incidents that might arise in the future?
We kind of talked on that earlier, like, will you reconnect or do you have another plan? Endings do not have to be permanent when it comes to a therapeutic relationship, unless it is a prescriptive course of treatment. So there are some therapy treatments that are very prescriptive in nature. Like this is like, you’re gonna work a 12 step program, or you’re gonna work intensive outpatient.
So it’s this many sessions over this many months, you know, or, or so on and so forth. And then it ends, so those type of therapeutic relationships do have termination dates on
Chris Gazdik: them. Those are called closed mm-hmm programs or closed closed programs. Yeah. And did you have a eight week session course right in that?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. And so, but [00:45:00] each person in the relationship, the client and the therapist has to build boundaries around the extent necessary that when you end a therapeutic relationship that, you know, there is a space for you to come back, like you’re always welcome to reconnect if necessary.
Chris Gazdik: You know, I, I feel like as You know, thinking about these, these questions that you have, it seems like you rallied your thought process around goal oriented goal oriented, a goal oriented process, which does that, does that make sense?
Kasie Morgan: Is that yeah. I mean, I’m very solution focused,
Chris Gazdik: right? Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Interesting.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. I, I have roots in solution focused therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy. So like that’s probably all over this. You’re probably right about that. Yeah. Okay, cool. It was kind of my own implicit bias. I didn’t really realize that until you started talking about
Chris Gazdik: it, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. Which is, which is cool, because like I say, you know, I mean, you could, you wanna be purposeful and goal oriented, did the purest form of [00:46:00] solution focused. I got a lot of critical in my brain early on in my career because it was like, we’re gonna be solution focused. You’re gonna tell me what the problem is.
I’m gonna create a solution for you. We’ll practice implementing it. And we’re done in about 13 sessions who like, whoa, Whoa, whoa. Right? Like that’s the way that started out. That’s not the flavor of what you’re talking
Kasie Morgan: about at all. No, and I don’t perceive that as being solution focused at all. I think that it’s really about the person coming up with like where we’re starting and where we wanna be.
And then what are the barriers to that? And then how do we address those barriers based on the individual and what is present in their
Chris Gazdik: life? Yeah, that’s curious. We’ll do it off the mics, but let’s try to remember. I’m I’m curious to, to have a conversation with you off the mic about solution focused therapy and what it yeah.
Theoretically was, and I’m wondering if that’s morphed, cuz yeah. That’s, that’s cool. Very different.
Kasie Morgan: It has. And I’ve also done a lot with acceptance and commitment therapy, which we can talk about off the mics. But the fifth and [00:47:00] final question that I have for the self in terms of is this the right time for me to start.
Having that conversation about termination or breaking up with my counselor is now that you are more than ready to take on life without consistent therapy at the helm. How do you start betting on yourself? Okay. And I think that this is a really important question to ask yourself, because I think when you have engaged in a therapy experience and you’ve been coming consistently to counseling, you always kind of have that session to fall back on to kind of check yourself, right?
Like, okay, I’m gonna go through this next two weeks, but you know, I’m gonna see Chris on, you know, the, the following Wednesday. So my following Wednesday session, like everything’s been going well, this is what I’ve been doing. And so. The therapist kind of becomes, you know, for, for lack of a better term, that accountability for you implementing your skills in your life and you doing life in a way that’s been [00:48:00] productive, that you’re showing growth and you’re continuing, and we almost become that cheerleader in a way.
Right? Like, Hey, like that sounds like you’re doing a really good job. Have you thought about this, you know, sort of the coaching component therapy. Yeah. It’s kind of the coaching component of therapy, because at that point in the therapeutic relationship, it is at a coaching element. We’ve gone through some, like pre-teaching some teaching, we’ve gone through some commitment with the, the new changes and exploration exploration and of diagnosis.
Yep. We’ve, we’ve gone through all of those phases. And so now we’re kind of coaching and things are going well. And so we’re at a place where, you know, you’re ready to fly the nest and try it on your own for a while.
Chris Gazdik: And I think this is a good period to, to put in another one of the things I’ve always thought about in the termination process, because.
It is a process. And oftentimes I’ll have clients that we, we talk through these things and maybe some of these questions come up. Yeah. And we develop a little bit of a plan. There, there isn’t any hard and fast rule [00:49:00] here, but young therapists listening out there, like, you know, you can continue a therapy relationship in what I like to think about and call a wind down process.
Mm-hmm right. So if you’re meeting weekly, maybe, and I, and clients will ask me this, I think happens more often too, rather than the termination discussion, like we were talking about before, you know, I, I, I would think I wanna step it back a little bit and I’ll say, okay, well, what are you thinking? What do we, what do we wanna do with that?
And we’ll, we’ll do that. I’ve even done for extended periods of time, monthly sessions. Mm-hmm right. So we just touch base, you know, once a month. After we’ve had a therapy experience for a little while and people, I think, love that. Yeah. It’s a very great way to reinforce and engage that process while we’re doing more outside of our, our therapy office in our, in our lives, we come back.
And so there’s, there’s a, there’s a lot of ways to kind of go about this whole process.
Kasie Morgan: Absolutely. And so I came up with some things to kind of use [00:50:00] when you’re thinking through that. So if you’re able to recognize. The like in its purest form, just the relationship between your thoughts and feelings and how that impacts your behavior, then you’re on a good path.
Right? So if you’re able to kind of recognize those things, whether we do the right behavior all the time or not, if we recognize it, accept it and understand it, then, then you’re on a good trajectory to be able to kind of have some stasis or some control in your life to be able, stasis, to be able to kind of, to work your life the way it’s intended to go.
And then also. if you understand that there is, there is a refresher, if you need to reconnect, like whether it’s been a month, two months, six months, if you need to reconnect and get a refresher on some of the things and, and re kind of open some of that stuff up, you can and it can be a one time refresher.
It can be a couple of month refreshers, like once a month for three months or whatever, you can decide that with your therapist on how that looks and goes. And if you understand that, that this is a space that you can [00:51:00] come back to, then that’s also showing that you have that potential of growth as well, to know that this can be part of your plan.
Once again,
Chris Gazdik: you’re being purposeful about. What your intent and process is and checking it out with the working it out together, the, the therapist. Yeah. Good
Kasie Morgan: stuff. Yeah. And so I think my last point on, you know, kind of exploring this through that, but throughout the fifth question is to also recount and remember who you are.
We talk, we call this in the biz, an appreciative inquiry, right? Which is, if you think back to where you were prior to being at this place,
Chris Gazdik: not to sometimes
Kasie Morgan: the coolest conversation, it really is like, when you think back to where you were and being at this place, it tells you a lot. And the first thing that it tells you is that you’re capable.
Of of doing a lot of things that you thought you weren’t capable of. Maybe when we first started meeting together, you’re very capable. You have the ability. You also now have the willingness [00:52:00] because you’ve put forth the effort to come through therapy, to, to do the work, to work on yourself, to challenge yourself, to listen to our challenges in session.
Some sessions were hard. Some sessions were easier, but you got through it. Right? And so the truth is, is that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And if you have been able to endure what you have endured up into the point you interfaced with me, as the therapist went through a whole process, was able to develop skills, abilities, aptitudes, whatever, have you to be able to combat the negative core beliefs and thoughts that you once had about yourself to come out on the other side.
You sure as hell, better believe you can bet on yourself in most situations in life.
Chris Gazdik: You know what that is? That’s called confidence.
Kasie Morgan: Exactly. Right. The quintessential definition of confidence.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You have developed resiliency that is authentic confidence, authentic, genuine in tune with yourself, [00:53:00] loving yourself.
And that is emotional freedom. Yeah, exactly. It’s awesome. And, and, and you, do you get in touch with that? I’ve I do. I love those conversations with people. It’s
Kasie Morgan: amazing. Yeah. And I think when you experience emotional freedom in that regard, then it is a good time to talk with your therapist about, Hey, I think I’m ready.
Like, I think I’m ready to interface with my life and move forward in my life and, and really try to endeavor this you know, on my, on for a while. And I, and I think that’s a very appropriate way and a very appropriate time to do that. Again, as a caveat, you can do it at any time. Like that’s, you can, there’s always an exit strategy, but at the same time, I think.
It from beginning to end open to close. This is where we as therapists would really love for clients to be able to get to actualize what they are capable of because the human experience you are capable of so many more things than you give yourself credit for. Absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: You are [00:54:00] so capable. Let me add a component here that I think might give some space in your mind to think about, well, what are the timeframes here?
Oh yeah, because we are so quick and sudden, and, and we could be impulsive in this process. and I wanna introduce the idea that actually goes all the way back to my training. When I picked this, this particular piece up from my clinic, one of my clinical supervisors, Ruth Witzel. I, I loved it was great.
What a name? Yeah, she was awesome. I had a, I had a few of them Helen, no one forgets you. Shout out Kathleen
Kasie Morgan: Feder. Oh, Kathleen
Chris Gazdik: Feder. Okay, cool. Jeff shook. You were one of those early ones too. Now we’re just like playing ball. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. Okay. so there was a training that she did or that the clinic did at the time on termination that, that stuck with me and they gave a timeframe reference.
That is just a reference is not a, a hard and fast rule, but this was from a to a clinician’s perspective and it [00:55:00] stuck with me and then gets lost because we don’t deal with termination. But the, the, the, the, the idea is they looked at having some sense of an idea to clinically guide this process. And what they said is you take the, the total time that you were in therapy.
Let’s just say it was a year because that’s an easy for math and you you’ve come to the idea that we, we need to begin wrapping up. Some of the things that you just talked about, you know, what timeframes does this need to look like? Well, a good reference is one third of the entire time that you were in a therapy process, right?
So you begin to wind that down and, and phase that out. You know, if it was a year, then you look at like maybe about three, four months, That sounds long. Right. But I think that if we, if we time reference that a little bit, you know, which could be the, every other week, you know, seeing a month, you know, at a time kind of winding down, it gives people a little bit of an idea to kind of frame up, like, what are we [00:56:00] talking about here?
So we, you know, is it, is it what you can do? You can just come in and just, boom. Okay. Well, this is the last time we’re gonna come. Okay. Well, that’s cool. And thank you for telling me we could bookend things a little bit, but what do you think about that as a, as a little bit of a timeframe wraparound to, to use as a little bit of a reference?
Yeah, I
Kasie Morgan: think it’s cool to use it as a reference, but not as a rule, right? Like it’s a, definitely not a rule. It’s definitely a reference, not a rule. I think that a lot of things can happen throughout the course of a therapeutic relationship. Like you know, I, I, some of my favorite clients are, you know, we get in there, we’re like six weeks in everything’s going well.
And then all of a sudden it’s like, well I forgot to tell you that X, Y, and Z happened when I was a child. Oh, okay. Well, cool. Is that something that you’re wanting to unpack with me? And if they say, oh yeah, then guess what? Like we just increased, like we just, we just like, we’re on a new issue. Yeah.
We’re, we’re on a new issue. And so, and I think that’s wonderful because that means our therapeutic Alliance have got, has gotten [00:57:00] really strong
Chris Gazdik: until also by the way, that’s like really common.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. It’s super common and our Alliance is really strong. And so I think that process when someone feels empowered that way, that can also lead to that as well.
So I would say definitely not a rule, but definitely a good reference. I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense that you’ve spent almost a whole year kind of unpacking that box, the amygdala’s emotional suitcase and that’s a phrase. Yeah. And so to think about just abruptly stopping that is. Like bananas, but to think about a slow progression over a couple months to three months, I mean, that makes sense.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just a reference point to think about. And I, and I I’m I’m I wanted to offer that at some point during our conversation and it makes sense here towards the end, as we’re wrapping up and mm-hmm, winding down because, you know, people don’t really know how to do that. Yeah. Like we don’t, that’s part of what I hope this show.
Concept has created for you is a little bit of a thoughtful process about that. And, and a good how to reference is like, yeah, [00:58:00] you know, you can abruptly stop a two, three year long therapy relationship, but, but you, but you do yourself a favor by winding in a process to wind down because there’s things that you deal with in that termination, what a word, right?
Yeah. Therapy, termination. What does that emotion does that even bring in that might have been something to start off the get, go with that occurs to me because that’s, there’s emotions that come into that there’s questions that come from that there’s process in, in winding that out. How do you maintain this and what does it mean to you to do these things now moving forward?
So there’s things I guess, is the main point that happens in that winding down, you know, ending therapy. Process.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. And I think one of my other takeaways is if you really think about your own personal life, right? Like, you know, most of us at some point in our life have experienced a breakup. If you don’t know about breakups, go back and watch one of our previous episodes.
I was on that one as well, not too long ago. [00:59:00] but most of us in our, in our personal lives have experienced some type of breakup. You know what those residual feelings were, you know, how those conversations went, you know what you wish you would’ve said what you wish the other
Chris Gazdik: person was, because guess what?
Those emotions come back
Kasie Morgan: up. Yeah. And they do. They do. And so I think anytime we wanna approach a conversation about, I don’t really wanna see you anymore, or I feel like I can do this better by myself, you know, and things like that. It, it does elicit some type of emotion. So when you think back to that and you think about like how that went and.
Be the person you needed during that time, when you’re going to end a, a therapeutic or professional relationship. Now, let me throw out some cautionary tales here. Please do not sit in my couch and say case. I love you. However, you know, this isn’t, this is, this is a time where we break up, you know, like that’s not the situation at all, but when you think about how those emotions [01:00:00] are big and, and what that looks like, I mean, it can be really, really difficult to do.
So think through that, who are, who’s the person that you needed when, when someone was breaking up with you, what would you have liked for them to have said? And, and how would you have liked to that have gone and, you know, don’t do it through text message, you know, yeah, right. Just like that. But but I do think it’s fine to sit down and have that open dialogue again, if I can reiterate anything else in this, you are not responsible for your therapist’s feelings.
This is not personal. Yeah. You need you just say
Chris Gazdik: that again, this is professional. It, it is absolutely professional. And it’s, it’s kind of the, the big question is how do you wind down? Or how do you terminate? How do you end a professional relationship? And it, it, it, it is in that vein. So, but, but, but, but what we do in our industry has so many emotions that kind of come up in that process and it’s very natural.
So, so we just deal with that. Yeah. It, it’s not about our feelings, our emotions, our judgements, our opinions, our processes, yo,
Kasie Morgan: cause I mean, as therapist at the end of the day, this is your life, but this is our job, you [01:01:00] know? And so we have endeavored with you to figure out your emotional understanding together.
But this is about your life. As, as the client, you know, I don’t live your life. I can help facilitate growth in your life. I can help facilitate your ability to navigate your life can even interpret experiences. Mm-hmm I can help interpret experiences, lots of things, but I don’t live your life. Right.
So you have the power you have to decide for you. What is the best course of action in this, in this relationship moving forward?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, no, I, yeah, I think that’s honestly a good bookend. Yeah. That’s well said and well, you know, emphasized closing thoughts, comments, anything that you’re thinking about otherwise
Kasie Morgan: well done.
I feel like this show was really fun for me. I, I really enjoyed it. And I think because I got all the warm and fuzzies when I was talking about the, the pinnacle of the client experience and
Chris Gazdik: it is in my career. So it, it is. And I, and you know, these are the times when, you know, you really do share, you know, the, the relationship, which is a professional relationship, you [01:02:00] know, there’s thank yous, there’s appreciations, there’s, you know, we don’t have enough time to talk about gift giving, which is, you know, we have ethics that go into this process, you know, and, but there’s, there’s, you know, look, you’ve done such a good job.
It’s been amazing to watch you do this work. And they may say, well, thank you so much for the guidance that you’ve done. You know, there’s a, there’s a process in doing that. And I, I think we did a good job. Taking some of the mystery out of that. Yeah. And so really we’re all about blowing up stereotypes, myths and stigmas about mental health and treatment and therapy.
So it’s, it’s a pretty fun thing to be able to discuss and, and bring delight. I think a great mystery about part of what, what we do. Yeah.
Kasie Morgan: So hopefully this will help you break up with your therapist. Yeah. Right. What a have a wonderful
Chris Gazdik: evening. Absolutely take care. And we will see you guys next week. Bye.[01:03:00]