Client preferences for the personality characteristics of an ideal therapist

ABSTRACT

Client preferences can have an impact on psychotherapy; however, little is known about client preferences for therapists’ personality characteristics. The present study aimed to address this gap using data from psychotherapy clients recruited through (1) Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (N = 235) and (2) a psychology department subject pool (N = 100). Participants completed a brief personality measure about themselves, their ideal therapist, their actual therapist, their mother, their father, a close friend, and a romantic partner. They also rated their satisfaction with each relationship, number of sessions attended with their current therapist, and the therapeutic alliance. Across both samples, Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness were the most preferred therapist personality traits. The ideal therapist’s personality characteristics were most discrepant from ratings of mothers and fathers for both samples. In most cases, congruence in personality ratings between the ideal therapist and the other relationship was significantly correlated with relationship satisfaction. The personality characteristics of an ideal therapist were highly similar to participants’ actual therapists. For both samples, congruence in actual and ideal therapist ratings was not predicted by number of sessions, but was significantly predicted by ratings of the therapeutic alliance. Implications and future directions are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Client
• personality
• preferences
• therapeutic relationship
• therapist

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kelley A. Russell

Kelley A. Russell graduated from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2019 with a Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology with a Rural/Indigenous Emphasis. She is currently employed as a psychologist at the Alaska VA Healthcare System in the Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PC-MHI) team. Her research interests include psychotherapy outcome and process research, use of client preferences in psychotherapy and use of evidence based treatments.

Joshua K. Swift

Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Idaho State University. He received his doctorate from Oklahoma State University and completed a clinical internship at SUNY Upstate Medical University. His research interests include treatment-seeking, premature termination, and general processes and outcomes in psychotherapy.

Elizabeth A. Penix

Elizabeth A. Penix is a graduate student in Idaho State University's clinical psychology doctoral program. Her research interests include psychotherapy processes and outcomes as well as mental health among military populations.

Jason L. Whipple

Jason L. Whipple, Ph.D., is a psychologist for the Tanana Chiefs Conference in Fairbanks, Alaska. His research interests focus on psychotherapy outcome.