ABSTRACT
A therapist who is retiring or relocating will be hoping to leave the client with some measure of internalised secure base. While retirement represents a challenge for most adults, therapists seem equipped to observe the process and make sense of what they are going through. Many therapists who relocate are doing so to accommodate a partner’s change of job, and time pressures can be more critical for relocating therapists than for retirees. With relocation the therapist may be juggling significant external factors such as transition between salaried jobs, a house sale and children needing to change schools. A number of organisations are beginning to run workshops and ongoing discussion groups for therapists in periretirement. Thinking more openly and carefully about closing a practice for retirement would mean that greater support was available to the many therapists who need to relocate or to take a significant temporary break in their working life.
