Termination issues

We have an art therapist who is retiring soon, and he is concerned with how to terminate with patients at the hospital--on his unit, and in his groups. I asked everyone in the supervision group to create an image about a time they had to say goodbye to someone, and then asked them to think about the feelings they had at the time. These feelings are comparable to what the patients feel when they have to say bye to therapists who leave the facility, but because they are patients with various issues, their feelings may be amplified, difficult to identify, and harder to express. We discussed how it is the therapist's responsibility to give the patient enough time to process his feelings and still have the opportunity to talk to the therapist about those feelings.