Effects of Client Violence on Therapeutic Self-disclosure in Correctional and Non-correctional Settings

Abstract

Treating clients with a potential for violence may affect therapist behaviors during psychotherapy. It may affect therapist’s use of a type of self-disclosure known as self-involving statements. This was examined by sending the CATS (Client’s Assessment of Therapist Self-reference) survey to 144 psychologists within the US (United States) with age 53 (SD = 10) and with 23 years of experience (SD = 11). The CATS survey asked questions such as how often a person expresses either statements of disdain for his or her actions or happiness for his or her progress. This survey was administered to 22 individuals practicing psychotherapeutic techniques within a prison setting in response to a perceived increase in the amount of violence that occurs within these types of institutions and 122 worked in other fields, such as community hospitals and schools. The results of the study show that there is a difference in reported use of both positive and negative self-involving statements, with the correctional population group using fewer self-involving statements overall and having different motives for use when compared to a previously documented population of psychotherapist. This study also shows that anxiety may be the cause of these differences with roughly 2/3 of the psychotherapists reporting that throughout their career they have been threatened with bodily harm by a client, and about half reporting that there was a significant need to activate emergency responses. Therapists in the non-correctional setting also tended to endorse more strengthening alliances and sharing or being open with the client rather than therapists in the correctional setting.