PSYCHOTHERAPY ENGAGERS VERSUS NON-ENGAGERS

Intake sessions. When clients arrived for their intake session, they first signed
informed consent forms and then completed pre-therapy measures. They then met with a
therapist for an approximately 60-minute-long intake session. In the intake session,
therapists typically asked about the client’s presenting problem(s), the nature and
duration of symptoms, family history and dynamics, medical condition (overall health,
medications, changes in sleep or appetite), current support systems (or lack thereof),
important relationships, presentation style, and basic demographic information.
Training for the HSS. Judges completed 32 hours of training including bi-
weekly 2 hour meetings and time spent reading and practicing coding. In the first stage of
training, judges read the HSS manual [see Webform E of Hill (2009) located at
http://forms.apa.org/books/supp/hill3/index.cfm?action=students&article=3], read and
completed practice exercises, discussed the HSS, and talked about potential biases. In the
second stage of training, judges practiced unitizing, coding, and discussing one full
transcript. In the third stage of training, judges coded two practice videotapes of therapy
sessions that were not used for the present study. Upon completion of training, the
average kappa between pairs of judges exceeded .70.
Transcripts for the HSS. All of the therapist verbal statements in each intake
session were transcribed by judges and then revised for accuracy. There was no
identifying information on the transcripts to protect the anonymity of both clients and
therapists. Also, to protect the anonymity of the clients, judges were given a list of
names (including client names, therapist names, and other people) to see if they know any
of the clients or therapists. Judges were instructed to not code sessions when they knew
the client, and instructed that if they recognized a client when beginning to watch a
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