Abstract

Abstract In a series of informal discussions stretching over several months, three veteran therapists tackled the theme of therapeutic failure. Their observations, subsequently transcribed and edited, draw from the literature of treatment outcome, the papers presented in this volume, and their own firsthand experience with foot-in-mouth blunders, client-therapist mismatches, and countertransfer-ence quandaries. The three discussants consider the ways in which the notion of failure is embedded in both the theory and practice of psychotherapy, and explore the ways in which this failure narrative shapes the experience of both clients and therapists.