PSYCHOTHERAPY ENGAGERS VERSUS NON-ENGAGERS
PSYCHOTHERAPY ENGAGERS VERSUS NON-ENGAGERS
PSYCHOTHERAPY ENGAGERS VERSUS NON-ENGAGERS
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dropouts and 7 returned for the therapy session after intake). The study was conducted in<br />
a university counseling center setting with a short-term (12-session limit) model. Results<br />
did not indicate a statistically significant difference in counselor verbal activity between<br />
engagers and non-engagers. Results showed that therapists used less information-giving<br />
and more minimal encouragers during the intake session for non-engagers than compared<br />
to engagers. The opposite was found for engagers: therapists used higher amounts of<br />
information-giving and fewer minimal encouragers during the intake session than would<br />
be expected by chance. Results also showed that client return for a scheduled<br />
appointment after intake was related to an increase in information-giving and a<br />
concurrent decrease in closed questions as the intake session progressed. Table 3<br />
summarizes the results from this study. Tryon (2003) proposed that clients returned for<br />
therapy when their problems had been sufficiently clarified to begin working on the<br />
problems (through the therapist’s providing information in the latter part of the session).<br />
Limitations of the study include: the sample of therapists was very small since only one<br />
therapist (a 38 year-old Caucasian female clinical psychologist with 5 years of post-Ph.D<br />
therapy experience, who had a psychodynamic theoretical orientation) participated in the<br />
study, the client sample consisted of only 11 university student clients (seven<br />
undergraduates, four graduate students) at a large private eastern university, the setting of<br />
the study was a short-term therapy service at the university (the results may not apply to<br />
long-term therapy settings), and the statistical methods may be confounded by differing<br />
levels of therapist verbal activity (i.e. some therapists talk more than others) since the<br />
analyses were based on raw numbers of the helping skills used rather than percentages.<br />
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