Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Emotionally Acknowledging the End of Treatment.
 In announcing termi-
nation, the therapist generally says something like: “You may have feelings 
about our treatment ending, which I  encourage you to bring up.” Patients 
will do so to varying degrees. Termination is acknowledged as a bittersweet 
moment— “It’s sad to break up a good team”— but also a graduation from acute 
treatment. That is, sadness is a social signal, reflecting the coming separation 
and loss of the therapeutic relationship. The sadness of termination may be 
usefully contrasted with grief associated with the trauma that precipitated 
PTSD, or (when appropriate) with depression.
It is fine to tell a patient that you’ve enjoyed working with him or her, as long 
as such self- disclosure is not used to cut off the patient’s feelings about termi-
nating. It’s best to elicit those first.