Don't Lose Your Patients : Responding to Clients Who Want to Quit Treatment

Premature termination—patient dropout, in Dr. Herbert s. Strean's dependably conversational idiom—is a blow to the therapist's self-esteem, professional status, and pocketbook. Traditionally, responsibility for it has been imputed to the patient's resistance or lack or loss of motivation. In keeping with contemporary recognition that the therapeutic process is a reciprocally influential partnership, however, Dr. Strean teases out and examines the therapist's role in the divorce. He brings forty years of professional practice to the challenge of recommending appropriate interventions for sustaining the therapeutic relationship at whatever stage termination is threatened, be it right at the outset, during the honeymoon phase, in the face of the first treatment crisis, or later still. As a bonus, Dr. Strean shares his guiding perspectives on treatment. They include careful listening, a non-judgemental approach, and constant awareness of the therapist's own all-too-humannes.