As a group psychotherapy instructor, I have often made ‘saying goodbye’ a centerpiece among group-relevant topics. It is the hardest topic by far to keep everyone, including myself, engaged with. I tell them all the ways that people, including ourselves, skirt the goodbye. We say “see you later” to people we are almost certain we will never see again. The platitudes that substitute the goodbye are much more common than that actual word, “goodbye.”
Many of us cringe at the certainty of the goodbye. There is no true goodbye without grief, both for the current loss and for all that precede it. So why push the point? I tell my students that in a world where true “goodbyes” are infrequent, unresolved losses loom large. So many of our patients (and if I am being truthful, ourselves) live entire lives without true closure in most of their closest relationships. Break-ups happen without explanation, employment positions are left without reflection, and many deaths are preceded primarily by denial that the inevitable will occur. We must get comfortable enough with goodbyes so that we can have them with our patients, so that they can learn to have them with others. While loss is inevitable, “good goodbyes” are possible.
Despite teaching and practicing this model through the turn of many academic years, I am not saying that the real goodbye gets much easier. Yet I am committed to real goodbyes, and I know most of you are as well. It is not an accident that one of the most heavily cited Group Psychologist articles is Leanne Diederich’s piece on Semi-Structured Termination Exercises in group. I have used those exercises and found great comfort in bringing some sense of order to an interaction that on some level is always overwhelming, because goodbyes remind us of our own ultimate demise.
So, this is my goodbye. As I say it, I am flooded with a sense of loss and it brings to mind the pains of loss at all levels: internationally as two horrific wars are ongoing, nationally in the wake of another mass shooting, regionally as the effects of climate change are perceptible within my own communities’ weather, and personally as I ready myself to attend the services of a close family friend tomorrow.
And yet, I still want to acknowledge this goodbye. It is so tempting to deny it and say, “I’ll still be around and working with the Group Specialty Council”. While this is true, it minimizes the goodbye of finishing my term as Division 49 president and leaving the board. It’s tempting to dilute the goodbye with an eye to the future. I genuinely see our division’s bright future and I fully embrace our next iteration of leadership. And yet—I need to say my own goodbye. You see the struggle, right?
So here it is—goodbye. Goodbye to the most meaningful leadership experience of my life so far. Goodbye to a group that I got to dine carefree with in a protected alcove at an amazing restaurant in DC, when we were on the precipice of the world being turned upside down by Covid, but we were completely unaware. Goodbye to holding a position where I feel like I was seen and had a say. Goodbye to a wonderful group of people who navigated a chaotic convention to re-emerge into the world of real-life interactions. The truth is for each iteration of the Board, it will be the only moment in which that particular group of people intertwine in that particular moment in time. I have made lifelong friends and we have done work together that will shape the society for many years to come. I wouldn’t change a thing.