Retiring Well: Therapist Readiness, Decision Points, and Planning
• Distinguishing between planned and unplanned retirements
• Navigating ambivalence: Understanding the push and pull factors around the decision to retire
• The Four-Stage Model of Readiness to Retire
• Preparing for the emotional and logistical complexity of ending a helping profession
• Releasing professional identity and developing a renewed sense of self
Clinical Implications of Retirement: An Attachment-Centered Approach
• Understanding how client attachment styles influence responses to therapy closure
• Best practices to prevent client regression and avoid abandonment
• Integrating the ending of treatment into ongoing therapeutic goals and treatment planning
• Maintaining secure attachment during the final phase of therapy
• Managing transference and countertransference during the transition
Ethical Issues for a Compassionate Ending of Therapy
• Ethical and effective communication with clients, including appropriate use of self-disclosure
• Key ethical responsibilities when concluding a caseload
• Understanding and preparing a professional will: components and importance
• Tools for healthy closure, including therapist self-awareness and emotional regulation
• Final tasks: consolidating gains, providing referrals, managing crises, and saying goodbye
• Reflecting on your professional impact: A Legacy Exercise


