Question

What are client and therapist variables that effect psychotherapy outcome positively?

Please include a paragraph between 350 and 400 words. Explain and please it should be a paragraph, no short answer or no definition.

Answer 1

There are a few factors that effect psychotharapy outcomes positively. These can be categorised as therapeutic alliance, empathy, experience of the therapist, client motivation, personality and symptomology. All of these factors are somehow important in succesful psychotherapy outcomes. Therapeutic alliance remains one of the most important key to producing favourable outcomes. This alliance is made when the client opens up with the therpaist and they are being able to build a collaborative approach in the therapy. from therapist's side, good rapport formation, showing interests in client's concerns, being approachable and respectful adds upto the therapeutic alliance. A good therapeutic alliance does not happen very quickly but it takes 1-2 sessions to build up gradually. Both client and therapist are responsible for this factor in influencing the outcome of psychotherapy. Empathy is the second most important factor from the therapist's end. The importance of empathy has been studied since a long time. Body language, facial expressions, eye contact are some of the non verbal cues to show empathy towards the client. Active listening, nodding and reflecting the statements back are some of the verbal cues for the same. Due to empathetic listening and behaviour of the therapist, the client feels validated, heard, confident and better on emotional basis. Next important factor is the experience of the therapist. A few studies and the practicing therapists state that the experience makes the chances of a successful psychotherapy higher. Others believe that it has very less to do with the success rate since every client is different and previous experience does not change anything while working with the new client. From client's end, the motivation and willingness is a very important factor in increasing the successful outcome. If the client seeks therapy on early stages, they are generally found having less severe cases or illness as compared to those who are attending therapy involuntarily or due to court order. Personality is a factor that helps in successful psychotherapy outcomes if the personality of therapist and client is matched. Also, clients with ability to make relationships, ability to communicate and express smoothly are easier to work with in a therapeutic setting. Lastly, increased symptomology may have a decreased ability to become engaged and work productively together with the therapist. In conclusion, the client’s collaboration, motivation, personality traits and active participation in the treatment tasks has a direct correlation with a successful outcome of therapy.