The expectation-reality discrepancy and premature termination from psychotherapy

✍ Scribed by David Horenstein; B. Kent Houston

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1976
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 532 KB
• Volume: 32
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(197604)32:2<373::aid-jclp2270320235>3.0.co;2-k

✦ Synopsis

PROBLEM

Clients who enter psychotherapy have particular beliefs or expectations about the various aspects of their impending therapeutic encounters. For most clients, at least a few of their expectations are not confirmed during their therapy experiences; for some clients, many expectations are not confirmed. A number of investigators@* 6, lo, 11) have focused on the possibility that such disconfirmation of clients' expectations may have adverse effects upon psychotherapeutic efforts.

Levitt (9 ) suggested that the disconfirmation of client expectations interferes with subsequent psychotherapeutic efforts, He formally named this phenomenon the "expectation-reality discrepancy" (ERD) and presented his position as follows:'S, P.