Clients’ Expected Number of Counseling Sessions, Treatment Effectiveness, and Termination Status: Using Empirical Evidence to Inform Session Limit Policies

Abstract

Many counseling centers have session limits to accommodate the increasing number of clients who seek treatment. The current study explored clients' expectations for the number of sessions over the course of one year at a large university counseling center. In contrast to previous research that has suggested clients want ten or fewer sessions, our results suggest that over 60% of clients wanted 20 or more sessions. Moreover, clients who expected 20 or more sessions reported therapy was less effective than clients who expected less than 20 sessions. While actual number of sessions was related to expected number of sessions, termination status appeared to be related to clinical factors and not clients' expected number of sessions. Implications for clinical practice and agency session limit policies are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• treatment duration
• dose response
• session limits
• working alliance
• treatment outcome