Love Yourself as a Person, Doubt Yourself as a Therapist?

ObjectiveThere are reasons to suggest that the therapist effect lies at the intersection between psychotherapists' professional and personal functioning. The current study investigated if and how the interplay between therapists' (n=70) professional self-reports (e.g., of their difficulties in practice in the form of professional self-doubt' and coping strategies when faced with difficulties) and presumably more global, personal self-concepts, not restricted to the professional treatment setting (i.e., the level of self-affiliation measured by the Structural Analysis of Social Behaviour (SASB) Intrex, Benjamin, ), relate to patient (n=255) outcome in public outpatient care. MethodMultilevel growth curve analyses were performed on patient interpersonal and symptomatic distress rated at pre-, post- and three times during follow-up to examine whether change in patient outcome was influenced by the interaction between their therapists' level of professional self-doubt' and self-affiliation as well as between their therapists' use of coping when faced with difficulties, and the interaction between type of coping strategies and self-affiliation. ResultsA significant interaction between therapist professional self-doubt' (PSD) and self-affiliation on change in interpersonal distress was observed. Therapists who reported higher PSD seemed to evoke more change if they also had a self-affiliative introject. Therapists' use of coping strategies also affected therapeutic outcome, but therapists' self-affiliation was not a moderator in the interplay between therapist coping and patient outcome. ConclusionA tentative take-home message from this study could be: Love yourself as a person, doubt yourself as a therapist'. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.