Consultation, Please
June/July 2001 

Dear Consultant:
My co-therapist and I have decided to end our bi-weekly mixed group after two years, our minimum commitment. This is a firm decision, initiated because of the evolution of the group’s composition and other projects. We began with four men and four women, both of us contributing clients. Five of the six remaining clients are hers. Neither of us is interested in continuing as a solo therapist for the group. Our relationship was a long and trusting one before our co-therapy experience with this group, and we have openly talked about feelings of rejection and sadness about not having structured time to be together. We are clear enough with one another to handle the psychological elements that will come up on an on-going basis as the group comes to a close, knowing that should we get stuck at any point, we would ask for help. What we don’t know is when to tell the group and how much to tell them. How much should we share about our own process, and how much time do we need to devote to our leaving? When the issue goes underground, what kind of attention should be devoted to it? What is the likelihood that individual members will act out their anger? Will our telling them early, (as in six months ahead), stop the good work on other issues or will this be ??the issue?? for the next six months? What reactions can be handled in the group? What issues might be better dealt with in individual sessions? What about guilt feelings we may have? We know this will provide opportunities for our own growth, which we welcome.

Sincerely,
Clueless in Seattle 

Dear Clueless:
This ending is a great opportunity for your group members. It is potentially even more powerful because there are two of you to support the work that will be generated. In general, the answers to most of your questions will be based on how you have worked with the group until now. Since the issue has been specifically generated by the group business of termination, the issues will need to be processed in group. You may also need to process in individual sessions depending on the nature of their transference to each of you—and what leave-taking means to them.

As you have already explored your own issues, you can go right into discussing group issues. You may choose to have the group share in the determination of an ending point, or you may choose to set the date yourselves and then tell them. Another option you may offer is that the group may choose to continue and to hire another therapist(s). Whatever you do, the point will be to guide them in continuing to work. In staying with the work, you will want to give ample room for expression of projections and for group members’ experience of the anticipated ending. You may note how their script and background is brought to bear with important figures that left them, and/or experiences in which the leadership/parents took full responsibility for the ending. Tend not to say much about your feelings or process, at least in the first few weeks so that the group members can respond out of their fantasies and projections on the “parent duo” more cleanly. How much work the group needs to do is dependent on the composition of the group, their issues with loss and abandonment, how this might be a repetition for individual group members, and how the group has been going in general.

One of the advantages of co-therapy is that it provides a wide opportunity for projections. There are projections onto the team, as well as onto each leader. You can encourage the group to share these projections rather than focusing on your feelings and your reality. Look for opportunities to encourage the exploration of projections regarding you as a team, especially around issues of abandonment, (who is leaving whom), responsibility, power,and control. Once the group has had time to process, you could self disclose some information about the reasons for the termination, and some of your feelings. Whatever you decide to disclose to the group will be for the purpose of providing them with a reality check of their projections as well as helping them to contain their projections.

Also, why so guilty? See what their fantasies are before you “confess” your guilty feelings. If you have used your own process in working with them before, then you may choose to continue sharing with them. You can discuss issues while the group listens in and then invite them to join you with their perspectives and wonderings. Other issues may predominate at times, either because they are important or because they make a good distraction from the ending. If the issues go underground, keep bringing it up, perhaps by directing it to your co-leader or redirecting it back to the group. (“I notice the group still hasn’t addressed the issue of ending. What do you think is going on?”) 

You might expect acting out if that has been a pattern in this group. If it has, then predict it and ask the group for suggestions about prevention and about dealing with it. You could ask them what they believe will happen now and how they want to work toward termination. Even if this is “the issue” for the next six months, you can still interpret it as a metaphor for whatever fits in the moment. This issue of ending is just an issue like any other; so work in whatever style you typically use in group. The focus will be to use issues therapeutically and to remove any obstacles to your intention to facilitate grieving and saying goodbye. This will provide the opportunity for the final sessions to be devoted to the serious business of leave-taking.

Editor’s Note: This question was submitted to the Co-Therapy SIG and became their first e-consult. The answer is a composite of responses from the following SIG members: Jordan Buck, Seattle, Washington; Amelia Bush, PhD,  CGP, McLean, Virginia; Robert Carlson, MSW, CGP, Bellevue, Washington; Trish Cleary, MS, CCMHC, LCPC-MFT, CGP, Chevy Chase, Maryland; Hylene Dublin, MSW,  CGP, FAGPA, Wilmette, Illinois; Eugene Kidder, MDiv, CGP, Seattle, Washington; and Ronald Kimball, PhD, DABFE, CGP, Washington, DC. 
As a result of the Co-Therapy SIG’s work, the therapist who submitted the original question was willing to present the results following the consultation. This gives us a clear example of how valuable an AGPA’s SIG can be to its members. Thanks to all that participated, as it gave “Clueless in Seattle” an opportunity to implement the suggestions and to do the following:

Dear Consultant
In June, we announced to the group that we would no longer be co-leading the group at the end of October and that neither of us wanted to continue being the solo therapist for the group. We made simple statements of how we had processed this difficult decision over several months and that we had consulted with other co-therapists by e-mail. We did not go into our feelings about the ending. We did say that we had tried to come up with another time to hold the group, since the late evening meeting time was one issue that led to the decision. Several members whom the other therapist had brought into the group asked me questions regarding my motives. I assured them that it was a difficult decision because I would miss them as well as the other therapist. The group members then returned to their process work as they deepened connections with each other. In August several members announced that they had e-mailed each other. (We did not prohibit outside contact, but did ask that all contact be open for discussion in the sessions.) They had decided that they wanted to continue the group and hire new co-therapists to lead it. I agreed to connect them with candidates they could interview. They interviewed almost a dozen therapists, but had not yet made a decision. They spoke in group about how the process had deepened their connection as a group and provided a deeper appreciation of us as co-therapists.

During the second group in August, four sessions before the October ending, a woman in the group, with several borderline issues, spoke of feeling left out of the process as to when the group would end since we had decided and announced the date. She spoke of the upcoming holidays, as well as the realization through the interviewing process that no other therapists would be able to just step in to take our place. Several others joined her in wanting more time to process the group ending. We took in what was being said and talked about how moved we felt by what we heard. We decided at that moment to move the closing date of the group to the second Wednesday in January, to give more time to process the closure of this group. We were all in tears before the group ended.

The remaining sessions were filled with acknowledgements that the group as we had known it was ending. There were expressions of grief, loss, and gratitude toward us, and discussions about the closure process. I don’t think any of us will forget the last two sessions. We all stated the changes we had experienced in each other over the two-year group, as well as the future challenges we foresaw for each other. 

Thanks again for your feedback in the phases of ending this group. I think our SIG e-mail consulting is a valuable way to connect as colleagues. 

No Longer Clueless in Seattle

This Consultation, Please column was published in the June/July 2001 issue of The Group Circle.