Are You in the Mood? Therapist Affect and Psychotherapy Process
Literature Review: Chui, Hill, Kline, Kuo, and Mohr (2016) presented a significant
research for the readers since psychotherapy research is one the main research areas in
counseling psychology. In addition, since therapist’s affect in psychotherapy
process is a less researched are make the article more appealing to the readers. Researchers
first sought to take description of therapist-reported state affect at pre-session, change in
therapist state affect from pre- to post-session, and therapist attributions of affect change.
Second aim of the study was to examine factors that add to therapist affective change in
session. Third goal of the study was to investigate …show more content…
According to findings, when clients were initially positive and when clients became more positive over the session, therapists’ affect became more positive. When clients were initially (beginning of every session) negative and when clients became more negative over the session, therapists’ affect became more negative. Clients rated the session quality to be high, when therapists were initially positive in affect. However, when therapists were initially negative in affect and when therapists became more negative over the session, clients rated the session quality and working alliance low. Furthermore, positive affect change was associated to collaborating with the client, perceiving the client to be engaged, or being a good therapist. Negative affect change was related to having `a challenging client, perceiving the client to be in distress, or being a poor therapist. Authors successfully compared their results to previous research. Limitations of the study were also clearly. Researchers reported that in this study they relied on student therapists of whom half of them had Asian origin, which make it hard to generalize results to general population. By the same token, they found small sample size of therapists to be an external validity threat. Another limitation of the study was to rely on therapist self-report of affect, which might lead …show more content…
Researchers showed a lot of the strength with regards to deep engagement with the content, clear explanation of purpose of the study and research questions, expansive and cohesive literature review, clearly explained procedures in methods section, tactful combination of quantitative and qualitative research, and great implications sessions. Especially, future research recommendations were extensive and enriching, which will likely to be helpful to researchers. In addition to the limitations the researchers mentioned, it could have been added a follow up assessment for clients to rate overall session quality and working alliance. This is because clients’ perception of session quality and working alliance might change after a while. Actually, the manuscript did a good job demonstrating how therapist and client affect are interwoven and influence session quality and working alliance. I brought up my addition since I am also curious about long-term implications of the therapeutic
Literature Review: Chui, Hill, Kline, Kuo, and Mohr (2016) presented a significant
research for the readers since psychotherapy research is one the main research areas in
counseling psychology. In addition, since therapist’s affect in psychotherapy
process is a less researched are make the article more appealing to the readers. Researchers
first sought to take description of therapist-reported state affect at pre-session, change in
therapist state affect from pre- to post-session, and therapist attributions of affect change.
Second aim of the study was to examine factors that add to therapist affective change in
session. Third goal of the study was to investigate …show more content…
According to findings, when clients were initially positive and when clients became more positive over the session, therapists’ affect became more positive. When clients were initially (beginning of every session) negative and when clients became more negative over the session, therapists’ affect became more negative. Clients rated the session quality to be high, when therapists were initially positive in affect. However, when therapists were initially negative in affect and when therapists became more negative over the session, clients rated the session quality and working alliance low. Furthermore, positive affect change was associated to collaborating with the client, perceiving the client to be engaged, or being a good therapist. Negative affect change was related to having `a challenging client, perceiving the client to be in distress, or being a poor therapist. Authors successfully compared their results to previous research. Limitations of the study were also clearly. Researchers reported that in this study they relied on student therapists of whom half of them had Asian origin, which make it hard to generalize results to general population. By the same token, they found small sample size of therapists to be an external validity threat. Another limitation of the study was to rely on therapist self-report of affect, which might lead …show more content…
Researchers showed a lot of the strength with regards to deep engagement with the content, clear explanation of purpose of the study and research questions, expansive and cohesive literature review, clearly explained procedures in methods section, tactful combination of quantitative and qualitative research, and great implications sessions. Especially, future research recommendations were extensive and enriching, which will likely to be helpful to researchers. In addition to the limitations the researchers mentioned, it could have been added a follow up assessment for clients to rate overall session quality and working alliance. This is because clients’ perception of session quality and working alliance might change after a while. Actually, the manuscript did a good job demonstrating how therapist and client affect are interwoven and influence session quality and working alliance. I brought up my addition since I am also curious about long-term implications of the therapeutic