Gender Self‐Confidence and Social Influence: Impact on Working Alliance

Abstract

The authors investigated the relationships between the counselor's gender self‐confidence, the counselor's use of social influence within the counseling session, and the counselor's sex in relation to the counseling relationship. These attributes were studied with regard to how deeply a therapeutic working alliance developed between the counselor and the client. Results support the importance of counselor characteristics on the counselor–client alliance. Implications for teaching, research, and practice are presented.