Reasons For Leaving Therapy

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Some partings with clients have remained a mystery to me. Analyzing the reasons why psychotherapy was stopped, I came across many factors that one way or another served as the reason.

Here I have highlighted several factors concerning both the client's side and the psychotherapist's side. This is what I encounter most often in my work.

Client.

1. The client's departure can be regarded according to another very typical scenario, which has now become more and more widespread. Leaving due to the fact that the client, starting to see the therapist as a parental figure, accordingly transfers his phobias and fears received from real parents onto this parental figure. In this situation, the client acts the same way as in his real life: he tries to separate himself in all possible ways, and in the case of the psychotherapist he succeeds one hundred percent. To come to psychotherapy precisely in order to leave after a couple of sessions - this is the meaning of therapy for an individual client. This is what he wanted, apparently unconsciously. Getting the invaluable experience of living real separation is what he can get from a psychotherapist.

2. There are patients who come to psychotherapy not for help, not for the desire to change something, but rather simply complain or drive away their anger on a neutral object. It is not important for them that it is possible to get out of this state and that there is a specialist nearby who is ready to help them in this, for them the main thing is that there is someone to complain to. There is someone to drain the rest of your anger on, there is where to unload responsibility for your life. There is someone to express everything that he cannot express directly or in general, in principle, express or live. When the client's itch is satisfied, he will be faced with a dilemma, what exactly to do next? If the client in this case does not receive due attention from the psychotherapist and the idea that it is possible to go along the path of changes (if, of course, they are really realized by the client) does not reach him in an accessible form, then there is an opportunity to continue the therapeutic alliance. Although, sometimes, the client just needs to complain.

3. Another reason why the client can stop therapy at a very early stage is the client's misunderstanding of the processes that are happening to him, in particular the processes of attachment to the therapist. You can often hear the phrase typical for these clients: "It is better not to get along with anyone, so that later it would not hurt to part." Indeed, as soon as the client begins to feel that he is getting closer to the therapist and his relationship with the therapist acquires the character of attachment, the client immediately leaves psychotherapy. The intolerance of understanding that he (the client) needs someone's help, or that he falls into a dependent position on the therapist, pushes the client to break this connection and leave therapy. It is difficult to motivate such clients to continue therapy. In this case, the therapist requires great attention to the diagnosis of the client and the identification of possible similar reactions already at the initial stages of acquaintance.

Psychotherapist.

The therapist, in turn, may have reasons why he will, on his part, contribute to the destruction of the therapeutic alliance and, as a result, the client's withdrawal from therapy.

1. Fear of not coping or fear of being a “bad” therapist. There is often a tendency among aspiring psychotherapists, whose professional confidence is insufficiently supported by experience, there is a tendency to help the client as soon as possible. In this situation, the therapist may miss the client's real need, overshadowing it with his need to “cure” him. Haste and misunderstanding will bring resentment and anger of the client into the psychotherapeutic process, disappointment and frustration of the therapist. Naturally, such a therapeutic alliance will not last long.

2. Lack of development of the psychotherapist himself. Quite often, among colleagues you can find psychotherapists who do not have experience in their personal psychotherapy. Leading schools and directions, as a rule, make personal psychotherapy of the psychotherapist himself a mandatory condition for certification, without the experience of which it is impossible to be a full-fledged psychotherapist. There are schools and directions in psychotherapy that do not set such conditions for their graduates, and many of them, under the onslaught of their own frustration and well-built defenses, willingly take advantage of this indulgence. It is extremely difficult to assess the role of personal psychotherapy for a psychotherapist in his work due to its enormous importance. As a consequence, countertransferences are present as the main theme of psychotherapy in these psychotherapists, and they also become easy targets for the client's transference. Without proper regular supervision, such therapy can spoil rather than improve the client's life in many ways.

3. Failure to comply with the ethical code of conduct by the psychotherapist. This includes disclosing personal information, entering into an intimate relationship with a client, inappropriate behavior of the therapist himself in sessions, and simply unprofessional attitude towards psychotherapy.