Psychotherapists' interventions and their effect on the patients' remaining in or terminating psychotherapy

ABSTRACT

The present study is aimed at exploring the effect of approach and avoidance interventions of the therapist on [a] the patients, remaining in or [b] terminating psychotherapy. Seven therapists of the Institute of Clinical Psychology, University of Karachi, participated in this study. 56 audio-cassettes of 28 patients [first two tape recorded therapy sessions of two remainers and two terminators of each therapist] were subjected to content analysis. Inter-scorer reliability between the author and the other scorer yielded satisfactory results. Mann-Whitney U test was applied to find out statistical difference between the remainers and terminators. It was found that with approach interventions of the therapists to hostility with hostility anxiet expressions, the patients tended to remain longer in psychotherapy, whereas with avoidance interventions of the tharapists to such expressions, the patients tended to terminate psychotherapy