Case Unclosed: Clients' and Clinicians' Perspectives on Premature Termination in Psychological Services

This study looked into the lived experiences of five clients and three clinicians on premature termination of psychological services. Using the consensual qualitative research (CQR) design, the study generated four (04) domains which were Catalyst for Help-Seeking, Discontinuing Help-Seeking, Therapeutic Alliance, and Challenges of Ending and a total of eighteen (18) categories/themes emerged. Under the first domain, participants relayed how other people they knew, and their own observations drove them to actually seek a mental health professional. For the second domain, all participants stated that it was the client’s idea to end the psychological service due to varied reasons. As for the third domain, both clients and clinicians discussed how they established therapeutic alliance, described their relationship with each other during and after the provision of psychological service and their collaboration process in terms of agreement on treatment goals and tasks. In the fourth domain, they revealed the four main challenges they encountered that needed to be actively assessed and addressed for the end phase. As an output of the study, the researcher proposed a therapeutic process checklist for clinicians as guide before, during, and after provision of psychological service. It aims to address concerns of both clients and clinicians and to avoid premature termination, if not avoid the risks and negative impacts of it