Since the publication of Sue et al. (Am Psychol 62:271–286, 2007a, b) seminal article, there has been an enormous scholarly interest in psychology on this construct of racial microaggressions—subtle everyday experiences of racism. In this paper, we provide a review of racial microaggressions research literature in psychology since 2007, following the publication of the first comprehensive taxonomy of racial microaggressions, which provided a conceptual framework and directions for research related to racial microaggressions. However, our review suggests that important conceptual and methodological issues remain to be addressed in the three domains: (1) what are racial microaggressions and who do they impact; (2) why are racial microaggressions important to examine; and (3) how are racial microaggressions currently studied and how might we improve the methodologies used to study racial microaggressions. We propose recommendations to further facilitate racial microaggressions research, improve the scientific rigor of racial microaggressions research, and contribute toward a more complete and sophisticated understanding of the concept and consequences of racial microaggressions—a construct that is undoubtedly salient and psychologically relevant among many members of racial minority groups.

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Research indicates that patients' hope and positive outcome expectations are associated with favorable treatment outcomes. The importance of hope and expectations are discussed in relation to psychotherapy in addition to broader healthcare settings such as pain management and surgery. Five suggestions for promoting hope and positive outcome expectations for patients are provided including presenting a convincing treatment rational, sharing successful case examples and the belief that treatment will work, increasing the patient's faith in the health care provider, making sure patients' expectations are not overly optimistic, and allowing patients to have input into treatment decision-making.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between trainee therapists’ and clients’ duration and outcome expectations and actual treatment duration and outcomes for clients. Eleven therapists-in-training completed measures of duration and outcome expectations for clients in general at the start of the study. After the intake sessions, trainee therapists and their clients (N = 34) completed the same expectation questions applied to the specific case. Results indicated that clients’ expectations and student therapists’ specific case expectations were significantly more positive than student therapists’ general expectations for psychotherapy. Results further indicated that taken together, trainee therapists’ (general and specific) and clients’ expectations did not significantly predict actual treatment duration; however, they were able to significantly predict treatment outcomes, explaining 11% of the variance in client change. Student therapists’ specific expectations were the only significant unique predictor of change. These results suggest that therapists should be aware of their own expectations when working with clients in order to make sure that any negative beliefs do not impact the quality of care that they provide.