TRI-T

Therapist Relationship Interview – Termination

Safran, J.D. & Muran, J.C., 2008

Interviewers – please pay attention to the potential for redundancy in questions and use personal judgmentto omit questions that therapist has already answered a particular question.

INTRODUCTION

In this interview, I'll be asking you about your thoughts on your relationship with your patient. Throughout the interview, I will be asking you a series of questions and I may ask you to change topics periodically so that we can cover all the questions in the interview. This interview should take approximately one hour.

INTERVIEW

1.EMPHASIZE A BRIEF RESPONSE TO THIS QUESTION:

Could you start by helping me to get oriented to your work with this patient?

(INTERVIEWER MAY USE THE PATIENT’S NAME THROUGHOUT INTERVIEW)

When did you first start seeing your patient?

Has the therapy been continuous?

Have there been any other treaters involved?

2.I’d like you to try to describe your relationship with your patient going back to the beginning.

3.Now I'd like you to choose five adjectives or words that reflect how you feel with your patient.

Can you elaborate on any of them (your feelings)?

4.How do you think your patient feels about you?

5. Do you think of your patient outside of therapy?

How often and in what ways?

6.Is there anything that puzzles you or that you find challenging in your work with your patient?

NEED ONLY ONE EXAMPLE OF EITHER PUZZLING OR CHALLENGING.

7.Did you experience any moments of conflict, disagreement, misunderstanding, or tension in your relationship with your patient; or a particular time when you felt rejected, attacked, or criticized by your patient?

IF NO, PROCEED TO QUESTION #8.

IF YES, CONTINUE BELOW:

Can you describe a specific time that happened?

When did this occur?

What did you do?

How did your patient respond?

What was your initial feeling or experience of it?

How did you become aware of the problem?

How frequently did this happened?

Did things shift for the better, or worse?

How so?

To what extent was this resolved to your satisfaction?

To what extent do you feel this problem was resolved to your patient's satisfaction?

What do you think was most important for its resolution (e.g., what did you or your patient do that was critical?).

How did you feel upon its resolution?

Did you discover anything new about your patient in this process?

Do you think your patient discovered anything new about him/herself in the process?

Did you discover anything new about yourself in this process?

Has your understanding of this experience changed since it took place?

Do you think your patient’s understanding of this experience changed?

How do you think this experience affected therapy?

Is there another important example of a time when you either felt rejected, attacked, or criticized by your patient; or another example of a conflict, disagreement, misunderstanding, or tension that comes to mind?

IF YES, FOLLOW SAME LINE OF INQUIRY AS ABOVE.

NEED ONLY ONE ADDITIONAL EXAMPLE

8.Did your relationship with your patient change over the course of treatment? If so, in what way?

9.What were your feelings about your patient during the terminating phase of your therapy?

Can you describe how you felt about your patient when your therapy ended?

10.In the course of your thirty-session treatment, did you ever worry that your patient would end the treatment prematurely?

11.Did your patient remind you of anyone significant in your life?

If yes, did you realize this early or late in the course of treatment?

12.If you met this patient in ordinary life would you want to be his/her friend?

13.What was your idea or fantasy about what would happen in the course of treatment with your patient?

Did any aspects of this fantasy come true?

14.How did you feel about the length of treatment?

How do you think your patient felt about the length of treatment?

15.Do you think your patient changed over the course of treatment?

16.What do you think were the most helpful aspects of the therapy experience?

In retrospect are there things that you would have done differently during the course of treatment?

17.Is there anything in particular that you feel you learned from this therapy relationship? I’m thinking here of something you feel you may have gained from the experience.

18.Is there anything else that would help me to understand your relationship with the patient?

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