Negativity in psychotherapists' evaluations of clients and personal acquaintances

Abstract

Abstract Forty-seven psychotherapists were studied to determine if they construed their clients more negatively than personal acquaintances. The sample included personal construct therapists, psychoanalytic candidates, and therapists from a community mental health center; they varied in terms of sex, age, years of experience, and clinical discipline. Subjects chose six personal acquaintances and six nonpsychotic individual-therapy clients who were then used as elements in a repertory grid. Constructs were elicited by comparing pairs of elements; all elements were rated on the constructs. Elements were also directly rated on several dimensions, including liking and similarity to self. Results indicated that therapists selectively focused on clients' negative characteristics and acquaintances' positive characteristics. Clients were liked less than acquaintances and were judged to be less like the self. The correlations between valuative variables tended to be higher in the construing of clients than in the ...