Thinking in Thirds Closing The Session (Part III of III)
How Do You Close a Session in a Meaningful Way?
In the previous 2 parts on Thinking in Thirds, I've detailed about the process of Stage 1 of creating an invitational beginning and Stage 2 of deepening the process in the therapy hour.
As a recap, here are the three different stages:
An Invitational Beginning,
Deepening the Process, &
Resolution.
Here are the three possible hats we might end up wearing at Stage 1: An Invitational Beginnning:
The Meanderer
The Rigid Behaviourist
The Focused
And here are the three possible hats at Stage 2: Deepening the Process:
The Wanderer
The Overwhelmed
The Deep-Sea Diver
Feel free to return to them for more details (Part I, Part II).
Stage 3: Resolution
This is the closing stage of the therapy hour. Like any time-based art-form like storytelling, film or music, ending on a resolute note provides a sense of completion.
While not that all of our client's problems are resolved by the end of a session, the feeling of resolve is one where the client feels the payoff for the time and emotional work, based on the journey traversed in the last 45 mins or so.
ACT III: The Closing
As I've watched hundreds of hours of therapist's recordings over the years, I've noticed primarily 3 ways therapists end their sessions:
The Abrupt
You might think this is absurd. Who would abruptly end a therapy session? The truth is, when you are scheduled back-to-back and the clocking is ticking—or if you suddenly realise that you're 10mins past the hour—you are tempted to quickly wrap things up.
The key thing to remember is that the experience of abruptness is not from the therapist's perspective, but from the client. And this might be based on subtle cues.From the therapist's perspective, it might seem natural that the hour is up, and you say, "That's all the time we have for today. Let's pick it up in the next session," but from the client's perspective, they may have only just touched on a core topic a minute ago.
Most of the time, the risk of becoming Abrupt occurs when the previous 2 stages of An Invitational Beginning and Deepening the Process have not been handled well.1
In other situations, the feeling of abruptness can be experienced when the therapist checks their watch. Even if you didn’t mean to, this type of cue creates a question to the other person, like "Oh no, my therapist can't wait to get rid of me."
Although this is not exactly abrupt, leaving clients on a cliff-hanger note is also not something you want to aim for.2
I once watched a master therapist for 6 sessions of therapy, and he kept saying in various permuations "Yes, we can address that," but never quite did3.
And in subsequent sessions, he would repeat that line, and kept going into explaining-mode instead of processing the issue; they never quite got to the "thing."There are occasions where we may not be able to wrap things up nicely in a session, and may need to put a through-line for the future. The key is that your client can see the connection—and that you do not forget to pick up the connection in subsequent sessions! (In the Structure and Impact course, we will talk about how to create themes and connect the dots between sessions. See details of the course below).
The Teacher
In teaching, a pedagogical recommendation is to provide a summary of what was learned in a class at the end.In therapy, it is also highly useful to consolidate and pull together all that was discussed. However, you don't want to come across teacherly-like. You are providing a reflective bed, aiding their reconsolidating, as well as impacting their future memory of the session.
In an extreme sense, when you are being too teacherly, you dictate the learning agenda and where the focus should be. You harp about the therapy homework, and may even chastise the client for needing to "do the work" outside of therapy and stick to the “fill-in-the-blank model” program. This runs the risk of make a client feel small and condescended, even if this wasn't our intent.
Our role in therapy may require us to teach at times, but do not become a lousy teacher. Most of the time, our role is to facilitate and guide, not to fill the pail. After all, information is not transformation.
The Resonator
Finally, at the ending chapter of a therapy session, we can facilitate the process by becoming a Resonator.I''m not referring to the muffling engine part in your car. Neither am I referring to a type of guitar.
I'm speaking about how we can create a kind of resonant experience from the therapeutic conversation.Near the end of a session, I often ask a client, "Based on our conversation today4, what strikes you?” or "What resonates with you from today?"
At Stage 3 of one couples therapy session, I asked a similar question to both, and one of them said, "It feels good."
Frankly, I wasn't expecting her to say that. And I told her so.
Then her partner jumped in, "So was I. I thought you were going to say this was a horrible session, and we have no hope."
The woman went on to explain what resonated for her, and she said how she was struck by how much her partner is trying to improve their relationship, which was unbeknownst to her all this while. She thought he wasn't giving a damn about the relationship. She started to tear up.If you were the therapist in the above scenario, given what was resonant, think about the various ways you can help them engage in some kind of therapy task before the next session. Many possibilities abound, given your theoretical persuasions.
There are times when I speak what's at the back of my mind and say what strikes me. Avoid false praise or empty platitudes. Do your best to be specific. As I encourage my clients to speak their minds in therapy, I too try to clue in to on any resonant note that hits me during our conversation, and then save it for dessert, if it is still is relevant by the end of the session.
Finding a resonant note to end on is not easy, and doesn't always happen. After all, our improvisational work is like digging for gold.(In Chapters 43 and 44 of The First Kiss, I talk about how you can close a first session and you can provide some pointed feedback).
Closing
I hope you find some of these ideas useful. Feel free to return to Parts I and II of this mini-series, Thinking in Thirds.
Think about how we structure our therapy sessions, as this is instrumental to creating an emotionally charged experience that in turns creates an impact, which increases engagement, and ultimately improving our clients lives.
STRUCTURE —> IMPACT —> ENGAGEMENT —> OUTCOME
May you continue to work at our craft, in reverence of the experience that you are trying to create for people who come to us for help. Whether you are a counsellor, psychotherapist, psychologist, social worker or a psychiatrist, this is ultimately healing endeavour. So let's create a healing connection, at each step of the way.
“In my early professional years I was asking the question:
How can I treat, or cure, or change this person?
Now I would phrase the question in this way:
How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”
~ Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person, p. 32, 1961.
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Learning to develop a structure of your own is a skill that every therapist should have. It's pretty hard to build a building without a scaffold.
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Footnotes:
Of course there are times when it's just the nature of the unfolding conversation where the client touches on an emotionally raw topic near the end of the session
This is not a television series, using psychological techniques to hook you in for the next episode.
I hope I'm wrong in my recall of this, but this was what I remembered from the videos.
I avoid using the word "talk." Talk might sometimes implicitly create an unwanted association with the phrases "Just talk," or "Talk is cheap." This might sound pedantic. However, the instrument of psychotherapy are words, isn't it?