Termination in individual psychotherapy: a survey of residents' experience.
This paper describes the result of a survey on one Canadian Psychiatric Residency Program. Fifty-four percent of the residents responded to the questionnaire enquiring about their experience of termination in long-term psychotherapy. The majority of residents (66%), had ended therapy prior to fifty sessions. In only a small number of terminations the resident felt the patient was ready to terminate (16%) and that therapy had come to a "natural termination". Therapy often ended prematurely due to the change of setting of the resident, drop-out and other practical circumstances as well as therapeutic impasses. The paper discusses the factors that influence the premature ending of what the residents undertook as long-term psychotherapy and their implications for their training and the patients' treatment.
D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000193:education*; D011613:Psychotherapy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors