Study of the patients' difficulties in ending brief psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Brief psychotherapy implies a limitation of the time needed, which should meet both the patient's acceptance and the therapist's awareness. However, some patients have difficulties in ending therapy. The material of this study consists of 27 patients. Of these patients, 5 dropped out in the termination phase, while for another 8 it became apparent a little before or after the final phase that psychotherapy would have to be continued. The results of the statistical analysis--factor analysis and analysis of variance for the investigation of therapists' difficulties, and discriminant analysis to assess differences concerning the suitability of patients for brief psychotherapy--showed that: (1) the less a therapist feels self-confident, the more likely his/her patient is to break off therapy at the termination point, and (2) the suitability score, determined during evaluation, emerges as the main differentiating parameter of the three groups (dropouts, continuers, completers).