Psychotherapists' Perceptions of Clients' Satisfaction following Termination

Abstract

The present investigation sought to examine psychotherapists' perceptions of clients' satisfaction following termination. During a 6-mo. period, 86 clients who terminated treatment at a large mental health center were asked to evaluate the service that they had received from their therapists. Therapists were also asked to predict how their clients would evaluate them. Results indicated that clients were favorably impressed with the services provided by their therapists and therapists tended to underestimate the worth of their services. Further conclusions, which at this point can only be speculative due to the limited sample, were that there were no differences in reported satisfaction of clients among psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers and para-professional groups, but psychiatrists predicted significantly greater satisfaction by clients than the other groups. They were the only group which predicted more satisfaction by clients than was actually reported.