Development of a system for categorizing client reactions to therapist interventions.

We developed a measure of client reactions to therapist interventions. The 21 categories of the measure were divided into 14 positive and 7 negative reactions, which differed significantly from each other on client helpfulness ratings. Preliminary validity data indicated that therapist intentions were related to client reactions more for successful cases than unsuccessful cases, pretreatment symptomatology was highly predictive of which reactions the clients reported, there were some predictable changes in reactions across time in treatment, and within-case correlations of reactions with client-rated session depth and smoothness indicated some similarities across cases. We discuss the case-specific nature of client reactions, methodological issues, and the need for greater therapist awareness of client reactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)