by discussing termination throughout therapy, you can better prepare your clients for life without you. Once a client has achieved his or her therapeutic goals, termination sessions should be held and documented in a client termination summary.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
· Develop client termination summaries
To prepare:
· For guidance on writing a client termination summary, review pages 693–712 of Wheeler (2014) in this week’s Learning Resources.
· Identify a client who may be ready to terminate therapy.
The Assignment
· Identifying information of client (e.g., hypothetical name and age)
· Date the client initially contacted therapist, date therapy began, duration of therapy, and date therapy will end
· Total number of sessions, including number of missed sessions
· Whether termination was planned or unplanned
· Presenting problem
· Major psychosocial issues
· Types of services rendered (e.g., individual, couple/family therapy, group therapy)
· Overview of treatment process
· Goal status (goals met, partially met, unmet)
· Treatment limitations (if any)
· Remaining difficulties and/or concerns
· Recommendations
· Follow-up plan (if indicated)
· Instructions for future contact
· Signatures
With the client you selected in mind, address in a client termination summary (without violating HIPAA regulations) the following: