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Hi community! Curious to hear your thoughts: What do you do when a client drops-out from therapy, at anytime in the therapy process? This thread is for learning, pls refrain from belittling each other. We are all learning and growing here, together:) Aakriti Malik Clinical Psychologist and Supervisor, 🌻 I find great joy in empowering psychologists on their professional development journey. ▶️ Follow for more. #clinicalpsychologist #mentalhealthprofessional #supervision #psychology #mentalhealth
When I was new to the practicing world and I decided to offer 1st session free to see if the client is comfortable with the approach I use but then later on I realised, Offering the first therapy session for free can sometimes attract individuals who are curious about therapy but not necessarily committed to continuing. This can result in a higher dropout rate after the initial session. One cannot really figure it out just by one session if it's gonna work or not.
When I was a newbie, I used to take it rather personally. However, being in the field for a while, I realise it can be for multiple reasons. If my rapport with the client has been decent and I can reach out, I usually drop in a text to receive feedback. A few clients have shared their reasons like scheduling difficulties, and money concerns and one of them mentioned not liking my therapy style which has helped me evaluate my practice! Thanks for this reflective post. 🌸 Curious to hear your thoughts as well Aakriti!
Aakriti Malik I have a question. Do you as a therapist check on the client if they drop out without informing i.e. stop coming?
I resonate with most of the replies mentioned here. The early outlook to patient drop out definitely used to be very different than how we grow into the practice. Looking forward to hear your thoughts too!
As an early career therapist, client drop outs or even client- ghosting can deeply impact my professional self image. But reflection on these drop outs will make things clear for me, to not personalize it and have a greater vision for the future ahead. Listing out external reasons helps me regulate after such experiences, as self doubt can come up easily at this stage.
I think it gives us a chance to reflect upon our experience...it could be that they need the time to process, it could be some external circumstances or it could be that the client and us had different goals at the start of the therapeutic process but eventually it took a different route. I think reflecting upon and understanding the "why" helps us to understand why they took a step back from therapy process
Hello Aakriti Malik As explained before by fellow mental health professionals, there could be many reasons why client drops out. I have had that experience too. I have taken it personally too and moped over it. However I talked about it with my supervisor at the time and got to know that this is very common and rather than blaming self, what helped me is to be able to look at it as one of the experiences that empowers us. It is also necessary to understand that we need some training, supervision/reading and we will not be proficient in all areas. Hope you find some value in this response. Cheers!
Trauma Focused Psychotherapist | Community Curator | MHI Queer affirmative
3moClient drop outs can happen for several reasons early career therapists might personalise a drop out, this blocks any learning we can have from it and any benefit for the client. It's important to carefully sit with all emotions that come up for us and process it after a few days of the drop out when one feels ready to sit with the situation objectively While it's important for us to learn from a drop out it is also important to see what in the drop out situation, is the therapists responsibility and what is possibly the client's reason for dropping out. Sometimes clients may not be ready for some form of insight, its important to check if our pacing was okay. If enough safety was built. But on the other hand, there is no amount of safety that can be created if the client isn't ready for therapy at all but is still coming for sessions. In such a situation it is best to understand that healing is a deeply personal choice and people should drop out when they don't feel ready. The most important lesson from a client dropout is to be grounded in one's own self awareness and process awareness. This can give us an accurate picture of what we need to work on and what the client's state of readiness is.