Clients' pretreatment counseling expectations as predictors of the working alliance.

Abstract

Because research suggests that counseling expectations are malleable and that alliance ratings predict clinical outcomes, the relationship between this pretreatment client characteristic (expectations) and the quality of the alliance early in treatment deserves further attention. This study examined the relationships between 57 clients' pretreatment role expectations and 3rd-session client-rated alliance in a naturalistic setting. Prior to intake, clients completed the Expectations About Counseling-Brief Form (H. E. A. Tinsley, 1982), and clients completed the Working Alliance Inventory-Short Form Revised (R. L. Hatcher & J. A. Gillaspy, 2006) following the 3rd therapy session. Results indicate that clients' expectations for personal commitment predicted the task, bond, and goal dimensions of the alliance. Expectations for facilitative conditions and counselor expertise did not predict clients' perceptions of the alliance. Clinical implications and research directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Do early therapeutic alliance, motivation, and stages of change predict therapy change for high‐risk, psychopathic violent prisoners?

“…The results displayed in Figure 1 show that the answer to this question is yes: ratings of therapeutic alliance from the second week were typical of those reported across a range of settings, clients and therapy types (e.g. Patterson et al, 2008;Carmel and Friedlander, 2009). Clients reported the strongest alliances, while therapists reported a stronger alliance than observers.…”

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“…There has been some debate (eg, [43]) about whether patient expectation could be a factor contributing to early patient-rated working alliance. In an attempt to clarify this, we measured expected working alliance at the time of the application to participate in the study.…”

Influencing College Students' Perceptions of Videocounseling

“…Others found that pretreatment expectations predicted premature termination in counseling (e.g., Aubuchon-Endsley & Callahan, 2009). Patterson et al (2008) argue that expectations are useful to examine because, ". .…”

“…Expectations have been investigated for a number of years as they apply to traditional counseling and refer to an individual's belief that something will occur or exist in a counseling relationship (Hatchett & Han, 2006). Patterson, Uhlin, and Anderson (2008) found that client expectations for personal commitment predicted three aspects of the counseling working alliance: task, bond, and goal. Others found that pretreatment expectations predicted premature termination in counseling (e.g., Aubuchon-Endsley & Callahan, 2009).…”