An Ethnographic Study of Client and Therapist Perceptions of Therapy Effectiveness in a University‐based Training Clinic

Sells, Scott P.; Smith, Thomas E.; Moon, Sidney M.

doi:10.1111/j.1752-0606.1996.tb00209.x

Cited by 51 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Hutchings and Pope's (1998) research, for example, based on questionnaires completed by a sample of adults who had been referred to an adult mental health outpatient clinic, found no significant correlation between client satisfaction with the service provided and client reports of positive outcomes, the subjective experience not being directly linked with 'objective' outcome criteria. However, Sells et al (1996) discovered that there is a close relationship between measurable therapeutic outcomes and one central aspect of client satisfaction -a positive relationship between therapist and client within a family therapy setting. Pinsof and Catherall (1986) have developed a method for measuring the effectiveness of this relationship by asking clients about:…”

Section: Integrating Methods In Therapy and Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This point is made by White and Reimers (1995), and by Perlesz et al (1996) who made session transcripts and files available to their clients to help them recall details about the therapy. In addition, Sells et al (1996) reported how many clients had said that the research interviews had helped them feel they had become a more equal and active part in the treatment process. However, such research is not easy, and the sheer effort involved in this procedure comes across clearly in Andersen's (1997) study of clients' experience of family therapy within a Norwegian adult mental health service.…”

Section: Understanding Alliances 55mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding alliances. How can research inform user‐friendly practice?

Reimers¹

2001

Journal of Family Therapy

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'User-friendliness' is described as a therapist stance which involves attentiveness to the quality of the 'therapeutic relationship', both between therapist and family and between service providers and their public. This article draws on research published in the last seven years from within and outside the family therapy field which can help improve this relationship. I will argue that the issues which challenge user-friendly practice need to be related to the theories which inform family therapy and to the traditional tension within the research field between focusing on measurable outcomes or on user satisfaction. The urgency for a clear analysis of what can make family therapy practice more sensitive to its public comes partly from the relative state of maturity which family therapy has now reached and its need actively to work alongside other approaches. Other crucial influences considered are a greater public demand for choice and improvements in public services, and social policy trends towards greater efficiency and accountability within the helping services.

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Section: Integrating Methods In Therapy and Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Understanding Alliances 55mentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding alliances. How can research inform user‐friendly practice?

Reimers¹

2001

Journal of Family Therapy

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“…The three clusters in our work that correspond to existing MFT outcome research were (a) personal qualities of the therapist (19 variables), (b) therapist executive skills (17 variables), and (c) therapist relationship skills (15 variables). The first and third contain several variables that illustrate one of the most consistent findings in MFT outcome research, namely the critical importance of therapists' relationship skills and ability to join with each member of the client family (e.g., Alexander, Barton, Schiavo, & Parsons, 1976;Gurman & Kniskem, 1981;Gurman, Kniskern, & Pinsof, 1986;Sells, Smith, & Moon, 1996). The second includes variables congruent with another oft-cited finding that concerns the importance of the therapist being active and structuring the sessions during the early stages of treatment, as well as avoiding confronting highly affective material too early in the treatment process (e.g., Gurman & Kniskern, 1978;Postner, Guttman, Sigal, Epstein, & Rakoff, 1971).…”

Section: Therapistmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Essential Elements of Successful Marriage and Family Therapy: A Modified Delphi Study

White

Edwards²,

Russell

1997

The American Journal of Family Therapy

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“…Only a handful of studies focus on the clients' subjective experiences: Greenberg, James, and Conry (1988) asked couples in emotionally focused couples' therapy (EFT) to identify helpful and hindering incidents and to describe how change occurred. Sells, Smith, and Moon (1996) interviewed clients about their perceptions of therapy effectiveness. Christensen, Russel, Miller, and Peterson (1998) asked clients in marital therapy to describe therapist facilitating behaviors and turning points in therapy and Helmeke and Sprenkle (2000) asked clients in couples' therapy to describe pivotal moments.…”

Section: Helpful and Hindering Factors In Different Therapy Modalitiementioning

confidence: 99%

Therapy talk and talk about therapy : Client-identified important events in psychotherapy

Viklund¹

2014

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Capturing and studying the moments in psychotherapy that clients find most important can help us understand more about how psychotherapy works, what the curative ingredients are, and by what processes they are mediated. Qualitative research in this area has, so far, mainly focused on describing, and categorizing clients' experiences of important factors and events. The methods employed to analyse the data have been rather limited in variation and are usually based on a realist epistemology, according to which data are basically treated as reflections of the clients' actual experiences. This entails a risk of overlooking and obscuring other aspects of therapy and the therapy process that are equally important to explore, for example the microprocesses of interaction within important events, or how clients' accounts of their experiences are shaped and limited by the context in which they are produced. The overall aim of this licentiate thesis was to explore client-identified important events in psychotherapy with a focus on studying therapy talk and talk about therapy from a social constructionist point of view, which would allow a closer exploration of the understudied areas mentioned above.In Study I, Conversation Analysis was used to explore the interaction taking place between seven client-therapist dyads in 16 client-identified important events collected from their third sessions. The analysis identified that 12 of the events contained clients' expressions of disagreement. Three different ways that the therapists handled the disagreement were discerned: The first, and most common, way was to orient to the client's cues of disagreement by inviting the client to elaborate on his or her point of view and to establish a shared understanding acceptable to both participants. The second way was to orient to the client's disagreement cues but define the therapist's own point view as more relevant than the client's, and the third way was a single case in which the therapist did not in any way orient to the client's disagreement cues.In Study II, two qualitative methods based on different epistemologies were used to analyse the same set of eight clients' accounts of 18 important events. The aim was to first identify what types of events clients describe as important, and then explore how their accounts of these events were contextually shaped and organized, and the consequences of this. The first analysis, a content analysis, yielded descriptions of five different types of events, which were similar to the ones found in previous research on important events. The second analysis, a discourse analysis, demonstrated how clients' accounts were not only influenced by the participants' ability to accurately remember and report their experience, but also by what was sayable within the context of the research interview. In conclusion, the two studies demonstrate how qualitative methods based on a socialconstructive perspective can contribute to our understanding of clientidentified important events by highlighting and ...

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An Ethnographic Study of Client and Therapist Perceptions of Therapy Effectiveness in a University‐based Training Clinic

Cited by 51 publications

References 30 publications

Understanding alliances. How can research inform user‐friendly practice?

Understanding alliances. How can research inform user‐friendly practice?

The Essential Elements of Successful Marriage and Family Therapy: A Modified Delphi Study

Therapy talk and talk about therapy : Client-identified important events in psychotherapy

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