Who Receives Psychotherapy? a Study of Demographic and Other Patient Characteristics

Abstract

This study reports on the sources of referral and the demographic characteristics of the 137 patients referred for individual psychotherapy in 1975 to the Adult Outpatient Department of the Paddington Centre for Psychotherapy. The majority of patients were referred by General Practitioners but self-referred patients were most frequently accepted for therapy and most successfully maintained their treatment contract. Young, single and female patients were more frequently referred but more males were accepted for treatment. Married patients, particularly males, appeared to maintain their treatment contracts more frequently than other groups. These findings are comparable for the most part with others reported in the literature.