The relationship among former patients' perception of change, reasons for consultation, therapeutic relationship, and termination.

OLIVERA, JULIETA; BRAUN, MALENA; GÓMEZ PENEDO, JUAN MARTÍN; ROUSSOS, ANDRES

Virginia Beach

Congreso; 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research,; 2012

AIM: The purpose of this ongoing research is to analyze the relationship among former patients’ perception of change, reasons for consultation, therapeutic relationship, and termination. METHODS: Semi-structured qualitative depth interviews, lasting approximately 90 minutes, were conducted with 20 former patients that had been in a psychotherapeutic treatment that ended no more than three years previous to the interview. The interviews gathered information about change on psychotherapy, reasons for consultation, therapeutic relationship, and termination. A qualitative approach, based on Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR -- Hill, Thompson, & Nutt-Williams, 1997) was used to analyze the interview transcripts. Domains, Core Ideas and Categories were created. A stability check was performed in order to analyze sample’s representativeness. RESULTS: The categories included in the 4 identified domains show how the balance of negative and positive aspects of the patients and therapists relationship is associated with the perception of change and type of termination. Likewise, categories related to reasons for consultation were associated with types of change and mode of termination. DISCUSSION: The implications for clinical practice of the interrelation of those components of change and interventions are presented. The relevance of the patients’ perspective is increasingly being recognized as valuable for the understanding of the psychotherapeutic processes and generates hypothesis for future research. The development of studies oriented to the professional awareness about the perspectives of the patient will provide relevant data that will increase our understanding of psychotherapy and its effects.