The Hidden Impact of Ghosting Your Therapist |
Take our Do I Need Therapy?
Find a therapist near me
Ghosting reinforces the very patterns therapy is meant to change.
Openly ending therapy allows you to be heard and respected in conflict, building emotional growth.
A healthy goodbye builds agency, reduces shame, and helps you assert needs and strengthen life relationships.
Ghosting refers to the deliberate and complete withdrawal from communication without explanation. While the term is commonly associated with dating or friendships, ghosting can occur across many types of relationships and commitments. Individuals may ghost a romantic partner, a friend, a job, a personal passion, or even a therapist. Ghosting may stem from fears of abandonment, a desire to maintain control over outcomes, avoidance of confrontation, or simply a loss of interest.
In our culture, we’re not very good at healthy goodbyes. Things like the internet have made ghosting even more prevalent, especially because online relationships may be intentionally vague or fleeting. This also happens in therapy, where a client begins working with a therapist or even has a long-term therapeutic relationship, and they cancel or miss an appointment and do not give a reason. The therapist calls the client, emails them, and sends them a letter encouraging them to come back for at least one session to have a healthy goodbye, and they don’t follow through. In my practice, I make a point during intake appointments to stress the importance of a healthy goodbye in which we go over their progress and put either a period or a semicolon to the work we did. I even put this in my therapeutic contracts.
Even so, the client may never come back or decide to just take a break.
Ghosting happens too often in therapy. One week, a client seems fine with their sessions, and the next, they’ve disappeared. No goodbye, no explanation; they’re simply gone. As a result, both the therapist and the client have missed some important and valuable benefits. And to some degree, so has the therapist in terms of the work they did and how they cared about the client and the therapeutic relationship.
All relationships rely on connection, communication, and trust. This is especially true of the therapist/client relationship. Good therapy requires a lot of vulnerability and openness for both parties. Ideally, if a client isn’t feeling like they’re making progress, or they feel as though they’ve gotten everything they need and are done with it, it is critical to end the relationship thoughtfully.
One of the most significant concerns with ghosting in therapy is that it can recreate the very relational patterns therapy is intended to help interrupt. Avoidance of difficult conversations, abrupt exits, and unspoken dissatisfaction are solutions for a flight response. Instead of looking at avoidance as a problem, it is better to understand it as a solution, but in the wrong context when used in therapy. It’s completely appropriate to avoid situations and people that influence or enact harmful behaviors. It is not appropriate to use avoidance in therapy, as therapy is supposed to help empower you to reclaim your autonomy and communicate effectively. Often, these longstanding coping mechanisms that are developed in response to earlier experiences of conflict, vulnerability, or abandonment are reinforced rather than examined. Ghosting bypasses the opportunity, allowing old behaviors to persist unchallenged.
Therapists encourage clients to tell them if things in therapy are not going well or if they are unhappy with the direction it is heading. However, many clients don’t feel comfortable doing this. They worry they will “hurt the therapist’s feelings” or that the therapist will retaliate or not like them. Their fears often stem from things that have happened in childhood, and they project this onto the therapist. This is called negative transference, where a client transfers negative experiences onto the therapist or brings them into the therapy room in some way. This is a positive indicator that therapy is working and presents an opportunity to work through unresolved historic issues. By not doing so, you lose the chance to do some deep healing.
Goodbyes can be emotional. Clients often avoid them because they don’t want to face such feelings. They neither see nor understand the value of a healthy goodbye.
What makes for a healthy goodbye?
A healthy goodbye includes honoring the good that has happened in therapy, how far the client has come in dealing with their problems, what worked, and, perhaps even more critical, what didn’t work for them, and so on.
Take our Do I Need Therapy?
Find a therapist near me
I get it. Endings can be uncomfortable and emotional for most anyone. They can bring up grief and guilt and memories of past traumas or failed relationships. But by staying connected even for a short time rather than abandoning the other person, all sorts of evasions and unexplored betrayals can come to light and offer opportunities for inner healing.
One man told me that he felt the therapist he’d been seeing for a very long time no longer understood his current needs, that he had evolved since they began their work together. He was wracked with guilt about ending their relationship. Consequently, it took him months to work up the courage to tell her. When he finally did, they parted on good terms. Ultimately, it gave him courage to deal with other relationships that he felt were lacking.
This said, some therapists also don’t do well with goodbyes. Many therapists want to help the client heal from beginning to end and may see a goodbye as a failure on their part. So, they don’t provide the client with a healthy goodbye but rather try to encourage the client to stay, even when it may not be a good fit. Even so, I encourage clients to give themselves the opportunity to say goodbye, even if the therapist can’t accept it.
Regardless of the discomfort, conversations like this have great value and even healing for both the client and the therapist. Silence, on the other hand, resolves nothing and reinforces ineffective and detrimental behavior, leaving the therapist wondering what happened.
The therapist might believe you were in the middle of important work on your issues and want to offer suggestions to consider when working with your next therapist. They might want to better understand what they need to pay more attention to with future clients. Did they not create a safe enough space for this client? Did they miss an important clue during your conversations?
The client may benefit by helping them overcome their tendency to avoid difficult conversations, to rely more on and stand for their honest feelings, and strengthen their sense of their own integrity and agency. A simple statement such as “I don’t feel this is the right fit for me,” or “I’m not getting what I need,” can be the beginning of either deeper work or the honorable ending of the relationship.
And this is important: They may also learn that they matter to the therapist, that the relationship was real and not simply clinical or business. This realization can open the door for them to be more present in their other relationships.
Ghosting achieves none of this.
When we avoid speaking up, we may internalize beliefs that our needs are burdensome, our feelings are invalid, or our voice does not matter. By prioritizing immediate emotional relief over mindful engagement, we forfeit opportunities for genuine internal growth.
Eliminating discomfort does not build resilience; instead, it perpetuates cycles of avoidance, abandonment, and underdeveloped communication skills. In an effort to maintain peace through silence, we ultimately undermine our capacity for honest and sustaining connection. Challenging these beliefs requires intentional action by speaking openly with the therapist about how you need to be supported and offering an honest account of your emotional experience and expectations.
Though it may be uncomfortable, this act of speaking up is often what disrupts shame and creates space for healthier, more adaptive relational patterns to emerge. In my experience, a truly successful and meaningful closure for both the client and the therapist can take up to three additional sessions. However, most clients aren’t willing to do this, so I suggest at least one session for closure.
To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
There was a problem adding your email address. Please try again.
By submitting your information you agree to the Psychology Today Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy