Of clients whose outcome is decided, 31% completed 10+ sessions and 69% stopped early — and the battle is won or lost immediately: 8 in 10 early stoppers leave within their first 3 sessions. Once a client reaches session 4, 70% of decided outcomes end in completion.
Of the 117 clients who stopped early, 59 came once, 24 came twice, and 11 came three times — that's 80% of all early stoppers. Whatever intervention improves completion (expectation-setting at intake, pre-booking the first 4 visits, a check-in call after session 1) has to land in the first two weeks, not month three.
Once a client attends a 4th session, the odds flip: 53 of the 98 who reached session 4 completed 10+ (70% of decided outcomes), and nearly half the rest are still active. Getting clients over that hump is the highest-leverage move in the whole funnel.
Among counselling clinicians with a decided caseload, completion runs from ~10% (Gill) and 13% (Talamonti) up to 46–56% (Remez, Walker) — with Hernandez at 83% on a small caseload. Dr. Sachdeva shows ~5% but runs assessments and testing, where clients were never meant to reach 10 sessions, so she sits outside the comparison.
| Clinician | Clients | Completed 10+ | Stopped early | Still active | Completion rate | Median sessions |
|---|