[Psychosocial characteristics in persons who often change their psychotherapists]

This study was performed on a clinic group of patients (n = 1000, 83.9% responder) to test characteristics of persons who switched psychotherapists on three or more occasions (n = 74). Compared with the group of minor variation, these patients had higher rates of psychosomatic symptoms, lower systemic operativeness, a dissatisfying sexuality, tended towards alcohol and pharmaceutical abuse, and had significant higher exposure in infancy to violence and sexual abuse (all p < 0.01 after Bonferroni correction). Psychosocial factors including early experience in forming relationships in addition to current factors appear to play a decisive role in a person's dropout liability as well as the attitude to therapy.