Your Client Ghosted You. Now What?
Resource - Email template to send out to your client
In our Therapists’ Corner Q&A last week, Alessia Renganeschi ADHD brought up something that hit a nerve with all of us. Her client had been engaged, consistent, making real progress and then just didn’t show up. No message. No cancellation. Nothing. Ahhhh! We all know that feeling too well and generally, we spiral.
She wanted to know: What do I actually do now?
And I could feel everyone quietly thinking the same thing; we’ve all been there. Sitting with the not-knowing. Replaying the clients last session, scanning for the thing we said wrong.
I once saw a client for a couple of years who missed one appointment and then disappeared for a full year. Turns out it was a relationship issue she was going through. Nothing to do with me. But I’d spiralled for months before I found that out.
Most of the time, it’s not about you. Sometimes therapy gets associated with a painful chapter, and when the client moves forward, they want to leave it all behind, including you. Sometimes life gets in the way. And sometimes, especially with clients who have ADHD or executive functioning difficulties, they fully intended to come back. They just didn’t manage to.
None of that makes the empty chair easier to sit with. So here’s what to actually do — and I’m giving you the exact email I use.
One email. Doors wide open.
I send one email. Not three. Not a chase. One warm, honest email that checks in, offers a few paths forward, and makes it completely safe for them to come back or not.
Take this Template, adapt it. Make it sound like you.
Subject line: Checking in
Hi [name],
I noticed we didn’t get to meet for our session on [date] and I just wanted to reach out.
No pressure at all, I know things shift and life gets in the way. I just wanted you to know the door is open.
If you’d like to pick back up where we left off, I’m here. Just let me know when it feels right and we’ll get something in the diary.
If you’ve decided to take a break for now, that’s completely okay. You’re welcome to get back in touch in the future if returning feels right.
If a full session doesn’t feel right but you’d like a short call — 15 minutes or so — no cost, just to check in and wrap things up properly, I’d be happy to do that. I think endings matter, even small ones.
There’s no pressure to reply straight away. I just didn’t want you to feel like the door had closed on my end.
Take care of yourself.
[Your name]
Why this works.
It doesn’t ask why. It doesn’t chase. It doesn’t make them feel guilty for disappearing.
It gives three clear paths: return, pause, or close things gently and none of them feel like the wrong answer.
That 15-minute wrap-up offer matters more than it looks. A proper ending, even a brief one, gives your client the chance to reflect on what the work meant. And it gives you something too. Not every therapeutic relationship gets a clean goodbye, but offering one is worth doing.
If you hear nothing after about a month, that’s when I send a short feedback form. Low-key. Simple. Just: your experience mattered to me, and I’d value knowing what it was like for you.
Then you close the book. For now.
But here’s the question I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since our Q&A this week.
The template above handles a client who’s already gone. That’s the reactive side, what to do after it’s happened.
But what if the way we structure our practices is making it harder for some clients to follow through in the first place? Not harder to find us. Harder to stay.
What if the ghosting, the no-shows, the enquiries that go cold, what if those aren’t just business problems, but clinical information we’re not reading?
Below the paywall, I’m sharing what I’ve changed in my own practice around commitment and what we discussed about how we can support clients when struggling with commitment is part of the clinical picture.
Including a £20 experiment that came out of the Q&A that I think could shift how you think about intro calls entirely, especially if you work with clients who struggle with following through with their best laid plans.
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