It has long been recognised that therapist reactions during difficult relational impasses with clients are implicated in psychotherapy outcomes and processes (Eubanks-Carter et al., 2015;Safran & Muran, 2000;Strupp & Binder, 1984). For example, Strupp (1997) noted that even highly experienced professional therapists had remarkable variation in how they responded to the most challenging situations with clients. Additionally, how therapists respond can significantly influence their clients (Henry et al., 1990). Building on this research and common factors theory, the facilitative interpersonal skills research method (FIS;Anderson et al., 2009Anderson et al., , 2016 exposes therapists to several challenging therapy situations, all through video simulations of standardised clients. Therapists and helpers respond to these standardised, realistic and challenging client verbalisations, and their responses are evaluated independently by trained coders.Evidence has shown that therapist facilitative responses to these challenging situations are predictive of client outcomes (Anderson et al., 2009(Anderson et al., , 2016, such that therapists who exhibit interpersonal skills tend to have relatively better outcomes with their clients.However, the behaviours of therapists during the FIS task are not well understood. What are therapists and helpers expressing, how are they expressing it, and what is contributing to FIS scores (which, in turn, are implicated in client outcomes)? The most immediate response to these questions involves the relational qualities being rated on the FIS; however, it is important to understand more about what is involved in these relational qualities.