COMPARING THERAPIST AND CLIENT PERSPECTIVES ON REASONS FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY TERMINATION

This article examines the extent of agreement on the reasons for psychotherapy termination given by therapists and their clients. One hundred and ninety-four client files in a psychology training clinic were reviewed to obtain reasons for termination cited by therapists in treatment termination reports. Telephone interviews were conducted with 87 of these former clients to determine their perspectives on reasons for termination. Consistent with previous research, there was little concordance among the reasons cited by therapists and by clients regarding clients' decisions to terminate therapy. Of the clients identified by therapists as terminating because of the successful attainment of therapeutic goals, three-quarters reported this reason as important in their termination decision; on the other hand, of those clients reporting termination because of attaining therapeutic goals, only half were identified by therapists as having achieved their goals. Dissatisfaction with therapy and/or the therapist were reported by many clients as important in their termination decisions; such factors were, however, rarely cited by therapists as reasons for termination. This article concludes that further attention to discrepancies between client and therapist expectations of therapy and therapy termination will be necessary to reduce the high rate of premature termination evident in psychotherapeutic practice.