Does Premature Termination Constitute Abandonment?

Most clinicians have encountered multiple situations where a patient attends a limited number of sessions and decides to end the treatment relationship, either by no-showing for successive appointments or by declaring that they wish to end the treatment relationship. This can present some difficulty when we believe that such a termination is inadvisable. Many of us have experienced the tension between respecting the wishes of our patients and not wishing to endorse a plan of action that we feel is clinically contraindicated. Most clinicians have wondered whether there is an appropriate legal and/or ethical course of action to take in such circumstances. Professional licenses represent large investments of time and money, and as such we are understandably wary of any situation that could risk these qualifications.

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