ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors describe strategies for how to end the therapeutic relationship well once clients are finished with their work. It is important for the ending procedures to reflect both the client’s needs and the therapist’s needs as the relationship is closed. Authors discuss strategies for determining clients’ readiness to end the therapeutic work, considering the clients’ confidence, depth of work and healing. In addition, the authors discuss how to determine when to end the work, considering the constraints of the calendar, natural breaks, or third-party pay or constraints. Guiding clients toward more shallow work will be part of the ending of the relationship. Discussion is also given to how to respect the clients’ preferences for how they like to end relationships in their lives, such as creating keepsakes, celebrations and other rituals. Focus is also given to helping clients plan for future stressful times by revisiting client resources. Self-awareness around the therapist’s preferences for ending well are also discussed. Creative Play Therapy techniques and sample prompts are given.
The Creative Play Therapy approach has seven phases which are displayed in Figure 12.1.
