How to Fail As a Therapist: 50 Ways to Lose or Damage Your Patients (Practical Therapist)

Depending on which study you read, between 20 and 57 percent of psychotherapy patients do not return after their initial session. Another thirty-seven to 45 percent only attend therapy twice. A follow-up study on dropouts found that most clinicians had no idea why their patients had terminated, whereas their clients could define very specific "therapeutic errors." Clients who dropout early display poor treatment outcomes, over-utilize mental health services, and demoralize clinicians.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There are a number of well-researched strategies which have been proven to reduce dropout rates and increase positive treatment outcomes. How to Fail as a Therapist is a manual for practicing clinicians and clinicians-in-training, detailing the fifty most common errors therapists make, and how to avoid them. Therapists will learn to avoid such failures as not recognizing one’s limitations, performing incomplete assessments, ignoring science, ruining the client relationship, setting improper boundaries, terminating improperly, therapist burnout, and more.