Individually, review following scenario and respond to all five of the questions listed below.
Number your answers.
Ms. Henry is a 70 year old woman who has been seeing you for relationship conflict with her adult daughter who is diagnosed with substance use disorder, and her adult son who suffers from depression. Her husband died 10 years ago when he was 65. You have worked with Ms. Henry for 16 sessions and the therapy is coming to a close. She has made some good progress. She has cut ties with her daughter, which was difficult but necessary, due to numerous altercations and theft by the daughter, of Ms. Henry’s property. It was initially difficult for her to let go of this relationship because she felt guilty, but with your support and law enforcement’s intervention in the last altercation Ms. Henry feels this is the best thing she can do for herself and her daughter.
She still gets “caught up in her son’s depression,” in that she worries about him and sometimes overextends herself but she has learned a lot in the sessions about the difference in loving and enabling. She still catches herself, “trying to get him to go to therapy,” but she does this significantly less and stops herself more quickly when she does find herself “in his drama,” as she has come to identify it.
Ms. Henry attends Sunday school weekly and church. She has some supportive friends, though some of her friends have been ill, and one died recently. She volunteers at the library and loves to read.
You have two more sessions with Ms. Henry and at your last session you informed her that therapy would be ending soon, as her insurance does not allow for more sessions and she has accomplished much of her stated goals. At the end of the last session, Ms. Henry became very quiet. As she was leaving she stated, “I don’t know what I will do without you. You have helped me so much. You have been more like a child to me than my own children.”
Given this information, come up with a plan for termination from therapy with Ms. Henry. Be specific.
1. How will you address your work together, with Ms. Henry?
2. How will you plan for maintenance and future concerns?
3. How will you address her feelings of ending?
4. How will you construct the final sessions?
5. Come to a consensus on how you would terminate with this client.
