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.