Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol 57(4), Aug 2026, 253-260; doi:10.1037/pro0000683
This study aims to analyze clients’ sociodemographic characteristics (age and gender) and psychological distress before and during treatment, and to compare clinical outcomes between clients who experienced therapist transfer (transfer group) and those who did not (nontransfer group). This is a quantitative, nonexperimental, longitudinal study, conducting secondary analyses of data coming from a Practice-Oriented Research project in a naturalistic psychotherapy setting. Participants included 33 therapists and 60 clients from a psychotherapy training service; the clients were divided into a transfer (n = 30) and a nontransfer (n = 30) groups. Both groups had the same gender distribution (70% women and 30% men) and the same mean age of 21.23 years (SD = 2.74, range = 18–29). The results of the study showed that the transfer group attended more sessions (M = 19.33) compared to the nontransfer group (M = 10.40). Both groups showed significant reductions in distress scores over time, F(1, 58) = 40.01, pg = 0.22, with no significant differences between groups. Reliable improvement was identified in 46.7% of participants of both groups; however, only the transfer group showed cases of reliable deterioration (6.7%). The findings show that therapist transfers did not lead to statistically significantly worse psychological distress outcomes in clients from a psychotherapy training service. However, some transfer cases showed deterioration, this highlights the importance of building structured protocols to ensure safe transitions and support the adjustment phase with the incoming therapist. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)