Credibility clusters, preferences, and helpfulness beliefs 2 Background: There is some evidence that the perceived credibility of specific forms of psychotherapy, beliefs about helpful and not-so-helpful interventions, and differential treatment preferences may influence both therapeutic alliance and outcome, at least in the short-term. The present study explored whether distinct clusters exist, based on credibility ratings, and how these may be related to treatment preferences and beliefs about the helpfulness of specific interventions.Method: Written descriptions of psychodynamic (PDT), cognitive (CT) and cognitivebehavioural (CBT) psychotherapy were rated by a random community sample with the "normal" level of psychiatric treatment (n = 121), psychiatric outpatients with limited previous experience of psychiatric care (n = 118), and a group of psychiatric "veterans" with long experience of psychiatric care (n = 48). Participants completed a questionnaire focusing on beliefs about the helpfulness of specific therapy components, rated the credibility of each form of psychotherapy, and ranked the alternatives in terms of preferences..Results: Using cluster analysis six distinct groups of participants were delineated. Some approached psychotherapy in an undifferentiated manner, tending to either embrace all or reject all of the methods examined. Others had differentiated ideas about the credibility of specific therapeutic approaches. These clusters were strongly associated with differential treatment preferences. They were also associated with helpfulness beliefs, previous experiences with psychotherapy, gender, and age.Conclusions: For clinicians it may be important to investigate the differential appeal of specific components of psychotherapy as well as entire therapy packages in individual cases prior to commencing therapy. For researchers it may be important to consider whether outcome studies would become more informative by taking patients' beliefs and preferences into account.Credibility clusters, preferences, and helpfulness beliefs 3 Credibility, preferences, and helpfulness beliefs for specific kinds of psychotherapy Given the placebo potential implied, the credibility of a treatment to an individual patient, his or her expectations and hopes with that treatment, his or her preferences for it, and his or her beliefs about what might be beneficial in a treatment should be an important group of common factors to explore in relation to therapeutic alliance and outcome. One problem about this group of concepts is the definitional confusion among them (Grantham & Gordon, 1986).Thus, for example, terms like acceptability, predilection, credibility, perceived helpfulness, outcome expectations, and preferences have all been used in research that, superficially at least, seems to deal more or less with the same phenomenon, whether a person or a patient believes a certain treatment is the most reasonable or suitable option for him or her and would choose accordingly if given a choice. And it is probable-and has b...

Different forms of psychotherapy appear to have their own market segments, the size of which varies depending on previous experiences of psychological distress and psychiatric treatment.