It's the therapist and the treatment: The structure of common therapeutic relationship factors

Figures & data

Table I. The MPOQ- Common factor questionnaire.

Scale	Item		Adapted from
Agreement on tasks	1	I think what we do in treatment will help me achieve the changes I want.	WAI (Horvath & Greenberg, 1989)
	2	What I do in treatment gives me new ways of understanding my problems.	WAI (Horvath & Greenberg, 1989)
Agreement on goals	3	My therapist understand what I hope to get out of therapy.	WAI (Horvath & Greenberg, 1989)
	4	My therapist and I are working towards mutually agreed upon goals.	WAI (Horvath & Greenberg, 1989)
Expectations	5	Overall, I expect much improvement as a result of treatment.	Attitudes and Expectations questionnaire (Mooney et al., 2014)
	6	If I do what's expected of me in therapy, I have a good chance to deal with my problems.	Developed by researchers at Modum Bad
Credibility	7	At this point, therapy seems logical to me.	The credibility/expectancy questionnaire (Devilly & Borkovec, 2000)
	8	I would recommend this treatment to a friend who has problems similar to mine.	The credibility/expectancy questionnaire (Devilly & Borkovec, 2000)
Empathy	9	My therapist is dedicated to help me overcome my difficulties.	CALPAS (Gaston, 1991)
	10	My therapist and I are able to have an open and honest relationship.	The Real Relationship Inventory (Kelley et al., 2010)
	11	I feel accepted and respected by my therapist.	CALPAS (Gaston, 1991)
Expertise	12	My therapist has the expertise to help me.	Developed by researchers at Modum Bad
	13	My therapist explains what we are doing in therapy in a way I understand.	Developed by researchers at Modum Bad
	14	My therapist explains my problems in a way I understand.	Developed by researchers at Modum Bad

Table II. Descriptive statistics for week 1 and 6.

	Week 1			Week 6
Item	M (SD)	Skewness (SD)	Kurtosis (SD)	M (SD)	Skewness (SD)	Kurtosis (SD)
1	5.92 (1.21)	−1.22 (.17)	1.68 (.34)	6.25 (1.06)	−2.25 (.23)	6.96 (.45)
2	5.92 (1.27)	−1.10 (.17)	0.83 (.34)	6.25 (1.10)	−1-88 (.23)	3.71 (.45)
3	5.50 (1.46)	−0.95 (.17)	0.47 (.34)	5.36 (1.13)	−0.52 (.23)	0.34 (.45)
4	5.68 (1.24)	−1.27 (.17)	2.02 (.34)	5.64 (0.98)	−0.81 (.23)	1.15 (.45)
5	5.94 (1.08)	−1.28 (.17)	2.34 (.34)	5.89 (1.10)	−1.24 (.23)	1.85 (.45)
6	6.16 (1.28)	−1.74 (.17)	3.11 (.34)	6.12 (1.29)	−1.81 (.23)	3.35 (.45)
7	5.80 (1.14)	−0.76 (.18)	0.17 (.35)	5.70 (1.05)	−1.13 (.23)	2.71 (.45)
8	5.99 (1.24)	−1.21 (.17)	0.89 (.34)	6.29 (1.09)	−1.82 (.23)	3.42 (.45)
9	6.36 (1.01)	−1.38 (.17)	0.51 (.34)	6.40 (1.04)	−1.96 (.23)	3.53 (.45)
10	6.40 (1.03)	−1.70 (.17)	2.02 (.34)	6.48 (0.91)	−2.19 (.23)	5.56 (.45)
11	6.02 (1.19)	−0.92 (.17)	−0.37 (.34)	6.25 (1.04)	−1.60 (.23)	2.47 (.45)
12	5.98 (1.26)	−1.32 (.18)	1.69 (.35)	6.21 (1.06)	−1.79 (.23)	3.80 (.45)
13	6.20 (1.13)	−1.32 (.18)	0.68 (.35)	6.43 (0.95)	−2.19 (.23)	5.44 (.45)
14	5.84 (1.18)	−0.63 (.17)	−0.67 (.34)	5.99 (1.04)	−1.13 (.23)	1.35 (.45)

Table 3. Factor loadings from exploratory factor analysis (sample 1, week 1) and ESEM (sample 2, week 1), both with maximum likelihood estimation and oblique rotation

		EFA		ESEM
	Item	F1	F2	F1	F2
3	My therapist understand what I hope to get out of therapy	.78	.07	.75	.10
4	My therapist and I are working towards mutually agreed upon goals	.68	.08	.71	.09
10	My therapist and I are able to have an open and honest relationship	.77	.01	.85	-.03
11	I feel accepted and respected by my therapist	.83	.07	.89	-.05
9	My therapist is dedicated to helping me overcome my difficulties	.80	.11	.87	-.03
14	My therapist explains my problems in a way I understand	.87	.06	.81	.00
13	My therapist explains what we are going to do in therapy in a way I understand	.76	.05	.70	.13
12	My therapist has the expertise to help me	.74	.06	.77	.09
5	Overall, I expect much improvement as a result of treatment	.15	.84	-.11	.81
6	If I do what's expected of me in therapy, I have a good chance to deal with my problems	.08	.77	.05	.71
7	At this point, therapy seems logical to me	.21	.42	.27	.40
8	I would recommend this treatment to a friend who has similar problems to mine	.29	.38	-	-
1	I think what we do in treatment will help me achieve the changes I want	.01	.85	.00	.87
2	What I do in treatment gives me new ways of understanding my problems	.24	.50	.08	.76

Table IV. Results from parallell analysis: Raw data eigenvalues, mean and percentile random data eigenvalues.

Root	Raw Data	Means	Prcntyle
1	6.773	1.500	1.618
2	1.938	1.378	1.460
3	.958	1.285	1.353
4	.761	1.207	1.264
5	.642	1.136	1.188
6	.555	1.070	1.118
7	.468	1.010	1.059
8	.417	0.952	0.999
9	.338	0.893	.944
10	.309	0.834	.881
11	.258	0.778	.826
12	.230	0.718	.767
13	.180	0.656	.709
14	.166	0.582	.641

Table V. Summary of goodness of fit statistics.

	χ2 (df)	RMSEA	90% C.I.	CFI	SRMR	AIC	Δ RMSEA	Δ CFI
ESEM W1	86.166* (53)	0.063	[0.038, 0.087]	0.966	0.033	4947.216
ESEM W6	88.162* (53)	0.071	[0.044, 0.097]	0.946	0.035	3133.688
			Invariance week 1 week 6
Configural	382.369*(258)	0.055	[0.043, 0.067]	0.940	0.065	7980.029
Weak	407.071*(280)	0.054	[0.042, 0.065]	0.938	0.111	7970.511	0.001	0.002
Strong	435.327*(291)	0.056	[0.045, 0.067]	0.930	0.114	7979.511	−0.002	0.008
Strict	573.539*(304)	0.075	[0.065, 0.084]	0.869	0.200	8148.089	−0.019	0.061

Note. Estimator is maximum likelihood (ML); ESEM: Exploratory structural equation modeling; RMSEA: root mean square error of approximation; C.I.: confidence interval; CFI: comparative fit index; SRMR: standardized root mean square residual; AIC: akaike information criterion; Δ=difference previous model.

*p<0.01; ESEM estimated with geomin oblique rotation; Bifactor ESEM estimated with bi-geomin orthogonal rotation.

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