When people come to me for supervision and share their feelings about the fact that the client has left, the first question I ask: “Was it a completion or is it a break in therapy?” I believe it is important to be able to distinguish between these processes are a key skill of a psychotherapist, because they are different and the strategies for working with them cannot be the same. Secondly, due to the fact that psychologists do not separate these processes and confuse these concepts, they fall into a thinking trap that will greatly damage self-esteem. In this article I will share important thoughts. Completion of the psychotherapy process: A formal sign of completion - it passed according to the rules that you agreed with the client in the contract. An internal sign - both you and the client understand that therapy can be completed. The main emotions here are usually joy and sadness. A possible bottleneck: you find it difficult to tolerate separations, then this will make the completion of therapy “more difficult,” and this is an issue that is worth working with so as not to lead yourself to emotional burnout. Work strategies: live with the client experience of separation, notice ambivalent feelings: both sadness and joy (and other range of emotions), without excluding them, draw conclusions, that is, complete the process together with the client. Breakdown of therapy: A formal sign - the client violated the contract agreement and disappeared. Internal sign - we do not have the feeling that the work has been done completely, the following feelings/sensations/thoughts will dominate or be present in the background: resentment, bummer, abandonment, uselessness, professional worthlessness, futility of the work done, the desire to catch up and fix something, will rise rejection complex, anger, etc.. There are many reasons why therapy fails, and I think the next article will be dedicated to this. Possible bottleneck: you find it difficult to tolerate rejection and/or stay with feelings when you were not chosen, and this is the point that it is important to work it out. Work strategy: complete psychotherapy (your work done) for yourself: with a supervisor, or independently. Highlight what was done well? What would you do differently? What have you learned? What are your emotions and what are they connected to? If you seriously fall into berating yourself, feeling useless, or getting “stuck” in some emotion associated with this incident, you definitely need the support of a supervisor. Thinking trap: only what has been started can be completed or cut short. There will always be people who are not ready to work, or your consultation alone will help them, or they just came to see what is fashionable here, etc. If you worry about every client who leaves, your self-esteem will not hold up, especially at the beginning. Work strategy: for me, depth psychotherapy (which I practice) begins from the fifth session, around this time the client 1. forms a conscious request 2. gets acquainted with me 3. tried psychotherapy for a taste, and then can make a conscious decision whether he needs all this? Another good strategy: some colleagues start with 10-15 sessions in a short-term approach, working on the nearest “visible” goal, for example, to relieve increased anxiety, and after that they offer the client a format for long-term work. And the third strategy: if you notice that a certain type of client most often does not stay in your therapy, but you would like to work with them; or out of 10 clients, none of us remained in long-term therapy, then it’s time to go for practice supervision. Trap 2: are you satisfied financially? Or have you placed your entire bet on a quick payback in the profession? After all, this is a long game... I wish you interesting work, pleasant endings and easily overcome therapy breaks. And I invite you to join me in a supportive and developing space of supervision. A break in psychotherapy. Part 1.