7 days ago
Grief and Support When Therapists Die
To the Editor:
Re 'Losing a Therapist,' by Ellen Barry (Science Times, Aug. 5):
I felt incredible relief when reading Ms. Barry's article; an all-too-often taboo subject made it into The New York Times.
As someone who has lost three analysts to death, I know firsthand the isolation and unfathomable grief that comes from losing the person who knows you best of all, but who has nevertheless remained a stranger in the 'real world' you inhabit.
Seeing Ms. Barry's article demonstrated that this once unspoken and fraught subject has become more mainstream, that therapists are more likely to plan for their own demise because they truly understand what's at stake for their patients and that patients experiencing potentially overwhelming grief will feel more supported and less alone.
Claudia HeilbrunnNew YorkThe writer is the editor of 'What Happens When the Analyst Dies: Unexpected Terminations in Psychoanalysis.'
To the Editor:
Thank you for your excellent article about a huge problem in the field of psychotherapy. We therapists and psychoanalysts often do not prepare for our deaths — and while we spend our careers listening to and caring for patients, examining every nuance of our patients' reactions to our vacations and other absences, we often do not prepare them to face our final departure.
Nor do we prepare each other. We rarely speak of our illness or suffering professionally. What usually happens is that a therapist or analyst just gradually attends fewer and fewer meetings, teaches fewer classes, sees fewer patients and then disappears from the scene altogether. And we do little to support each other.
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