Goodbye for the Last Time

All placements must come to an end. 

After weeks of working closely with a client, who wouldn’t wonder - what happened to my client who I saw daily for therapy? What happened to my client who became tearful when they spoke about their fears? What happened to that equipment funding request I helped write? Your student’s genuine curiosity and concern could be endless but cannot be appeased as we must abide by strict legislation to protect personal information.

As a therapist, you have faced a variety of similar experiences where the end to a therapeutic, client relationship felt unfinished. Modelling ways to gain closure will support your student’s ability to cope as a clinician later.

So how can you, as fieldwork educators, facilitate a sense of closure for your student during placement?

Here are a few suggestions:

·      Remind your student to tell clients of their eventual departure with a specific end date to establish boundaries,

·     Protect time at the end of placement for your student to individually say goodbye to clients and suggest sharing: 

§  Something they have learned from the client,

§  Ways in which the client helped shape their professional growth,

§  How they have appreciated their work together,

§  Strict boundaries regarding communication moving forward,

§  How you, as the therapist, have been updated on what was being worked on and will continue to provide services.

·     Allow time to close your own student-educator relationship during the final evaluation as you would for a client (above),

·     Consider being open and honest about your own feelings and strategies you use to cope with lack of closure or difficult goodbyes as they occur in real-time during placement.

Goodbyes are hard but it is a hard we need to learn to cope with as therapists as one goodbye makes room for a hello with a new client. And if that’s not encouraging enough, remind your student of the timeless wisdom of Dr. Seuss - “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Julie

NB: 'client' is being used to symbolize individual persons, patients/residents, caregivers/support systems, and communities.