Clients’ perceptions of the psychotherapy relationship

This study used the Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR;) method to explore 14 clients’ perspectives of their psychotherapy relationship. Most of the 14 clients were enrolled in graduate psychology programs, and all were engaged in personal psychotherapy at the time that the interviews were conducted. They were asked open-ended questions about their perceptions of the real relationship, the working alliance, and transference/countertransference. Results revealed five broad domains: clients’ perceptions of their therapists’ work, their own work, the working alliance, the real relationship, and transference/countertransference. There were two general findings: all of the clients reported knowing very little about their therapists, but also liking their therapists. Among the typical categories were the following: 1) clients expressed appreciation and valued therapists’ interventions, often noting that therapists’ self-disclosure, though limited, helped the real relationship; 2) in response to open-ended questions about the working alliance, clients reported that it helped them in their work in therapy; 3) clients believed that their therapists knew them well; 4) clients believed their therapists liked them; and 5) clients noted that their therapists reminded them of someone in their own lives. These results indicate that the participants in our study were aware of, sensitive to, and perceptive of their therapy relationship; at least when prompted, they formulated opinions about what was happening between themselves and their therapists. As evident from our results, clients in our study were interested in and curious about their therapists as people, and reported benefitting from knowing a little about their therapists’ lives. These results and others are presented along with implications for practice and future research in this area.