Several studies of attrition from encounter and therapy groups have identified anxiety about self-disclosure as a common cause of early therapy termination. If such anxiety also contributes to attrition from interpersonal skills training groups, then time and funds invested in training mental health paraprofessionals may be lost. The relationship between trainee self-disclosure and training program attrition was investigated using data from the UCLA Helping-talk Project. Before the training program, the 208 subjects completed a self-disclosure measure. Results showed that the pretraining level of self-disclosure significantly discriminated attrition from participant subjects for trained subjects, but not for control subjects. Trainees who failed to complete the training program had significantly lower self-disclosure scores than those who completed the training. Results may indicate a need for alteration of the content of the packaged communication skills training programs. (JAC)