psychological mindedness and therapist attributes
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This article was downloaded by: [University of Bath]On: 26 November 2014, At: 05:09Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Counselling and Psychotherapy Research: Linkingresearch with practicePublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcpr20
Psychological mindedness and therapist attributesBecky Daw a & Stephen Joseph ba St Mary's CAMHS , Paddington Green , London, UKb School of Sociology and Social Policy , University of Nottingham , UKPublished online: 12 Oct 2009.
To cite this article: Becky Daw & Stephen Joseph (2010) Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes, Counselling andPsychotherapy Research: Linking research with practice, 10:3, 233-236
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733140903226982
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Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes
BECKY DAW1 & STEPHEN JOSEPH2*
1St Mary’s CAMHS, Paddington Green, London, UK, and 2School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of
Nottingham, UK
Abstract
Background to study: Psychological Mindedness (PM) involves an interest in and ability to extract and make sense of
psychological information (thoughts, feelings and behaviours) from a situation. The nature of the psychotherapeutic role
and training demands therapists think about motives, distortions and inner experiences of others. Aims: This study
empirically examined the association between PM and adaptive therapist attributes, clinician empathy, self understanding
and the therapeutic relationship in practitioners. Method: Forty eight therapists responded to a postal questionnaire. Results:
Statistically significant correlations were found between adaptive therapist attributes; empathy, the therapeutic relationship
and level of self-understanding and PM.
Keywords: Psychological Mindedness; therapeutic relationship; empathy
Introduction
Psychological Mindedness (PM) is defined as ‘a
degree of access to one’s feelings that leads, through
discussion of one’s problems with others, to an
ability to acquire insight into meaning and motiva-
tion of one’s own and others thoughts, feelings and
behaviour, and to a capacity for change’ (Conte &
Ratto, 1997, p. 21). Hence PM involves an interest
in and ability to extract psychological information
(thoughts, feelings and behaviours) from a scenario
and note patterns or relationships among these
concepts in trying to make sense of the experience,
be it own or others’.
Psychotherapists are a group shown to be especially
psychologically minded (Westen, Huebner, Boe-
kamp, Lifton, & Silverman, 1991). The nature of
the psychotherapeutic role and training demands
therapists think about motives, distortions and inner
experiences of others (Farber, 1985). Farber and
colleagues recently questioned why psychotherapists
chose their career, and suggest many people become
psychotherapists as they have an especially strong
need to understand others, are fascinated with human
behaviour and enjoy the intellectual stimulation
trying to understand people brings (Farber,
Manevich, Metzer, & Saypol, 2005). They propose
that many psychotherapists, early in life, begin to
think about the ‘whys of behaviour’ (Farber et al.,
2005, p. 1016). This skill brings meaning to the
psychotherapists’ own experiences, but also influ-
ences their career path into mental health services.
Many psychotherapists state that for them this is the
one career that is really ‘ego-syntonic’, totally con-
sistent with the way they have understood, behaved
and felt all their life (Farber et al., 2005).
PM is a central aspect of a psychotherapist’s life
but one that has drawn little attention from the
therapeutic community. The aim of this study is to
investigate the association between PM and desir-
able therapist attributes. We would expect that
therapists who score higher on PM would be more
empathic, more able to develop collaborative and
affective working relationships and show greater self-
understanding.
Method
Sample
Participants comprised of 48 qualified therapists
who responded to a postal questionnaire distributed
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, September 2010; 10(3): 233�236
ISSN 1473-3145 print/1746-1405 online # 2010 British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
DOI: 10.1080/14733140903226982
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by the author (a 22% response rate). All therapists
(10 males, 38 females) worked within the Midlands
region of the UK. Ages ranged from 28 to 63 years
(M�42.9); 69% described themselves as ‘married
or living as married’ (n�33), 19% as ‘single/never
married’ (n�9), 4% as ‘separated’ (n�2), 4% as
‘divorced’ (n�2) and 4% as ‘widowed’ (n�2). The
racial composition of the sample was 98% Caucasian
(n�47), 2% Indian (n�1). The sample had prac-
ticed as qualified therapists for between 2 months
and 32 years (M�10.75 years); 71% of the sample
described their professional role as ‘Clinical Psychol-
ogist’ (n�34), 17% as ‘Counsellor’ (n�8), 6% as
‘Other’ (n�3), 4% as ‘Psychotherapist’ (n�2) and
2% as ‘Counselling Psychologist’ (n�1).
Procedure
A questionnaire was sent to all psychological thera-
pists (n�220) in three National Health Service
Trusts in the West Midlands requesting their parti-
cipation in research about clinical practice. Inter-
ested practitioners were asked to complete the
consent forms and return the questionnaire in an
enclosed stamped, self-addressed envelope to the
author. The first part of the questionnaire was used
to collect qualitative data which we have reported
elsewhere (see Daw & Joseph, 2007), the second
part consisted of four widely used psychometric
scales:
1. Psychological Mindedness Scale (PM: Conte et
al., 1990) consists of 45 items (e.g. I am always
curious about the reasons people behave as they do)
each of which is rated on a 4 point scale that
ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly
agree). The total score is obtained by summing
responses on all items, such that scores on the
PM have a potential range of 45�180.
2. Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy � Health
Professional Version (JSPE � HP; Hojat et al.,
2002) consists of 20 items (e.g. I try to under-
stand what is going on in my clients’ minds by
paying attention to their non-verbal cues and body
language) each of which is rated on a seven-
point scale that ranges from 1 (strongly dis-
agree) to 7 (strongly agree). The total score is
calculated by summing responses on all items,
such that scores have a potential range of 20�140. Higher scores indicate a higher degree of
empathy towards clients.
3. Self-Understanding of Interpersonal Patterns
(SUIP: Connolly et al., 1999) consists of 19
items (e.g. I am very dependent on others for
approval, and feel hurt when they reject me). The
respondent answers either yes or no to each item
to indicate whether the statement is relevant.
For each item that is answered yes, the respon-
dent then is asked to rate a four-point scale,
where: 1�I recognise that I feel and act this way
with a significant person in my life, but I don’t
know why; 2�I can see that this experience has
become a pattern with multiple people in my life, but
I don’t know why; 3�I am beginning to see a link
between these experiences and past relationship
experiences, but the connection is not yet clear;
4�I can clearly see that I feel and act this way
because of past relationship experiences. Thus, two
scores are yielded; (1) the recognition score
(SUIP � RECOG) which is the sum of the
problems recognised by the person (ranges
from 0-19), and (2) the average self-under-
standing (SUIP � SU) score representing the
person’s level of self-understanding (scores
range from 1�4).
4. Working Alliance Inventory (WAI-Form �therapist version: Horvath, 1981; Horvath, &
Greenberg, 1989).consists of 36 items (e.g. I
appreciate my clients as people), each of which is
rated on a seven-point scale that ranges from
1 (never) to 7 (always). Higher scores indicate
greater bonding, goal setting, and task agree-
ment. For the present study only the total score
is reported, which can range from 36�252, with
higher scores indicating greater ability to form
a therapeutic working alliance.
Ethical approval
Prior to commencing the research, the project was
approved by the Multi Region Ethics Committee
(MREC).
Results
Pearson’s r was computed between age and PM. No
association was found (r��.13, ns).
No differences were found between women and
men on PM (F [1,47]�1.824, ns), thus subsequent
analyses were carried out on the total sample. Scale
descriptive statistics and intercorrelations are pre-
sented in Table I.
234 B. Daw & S. Joseph
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Pearson’s product moment correlations revealed
that higher scores on PM were associated with
higher scores on empathy, working alliance, level of
self-understanding and with lower scores on the
number of interpersonal patterns recognized on the
SUIP.
Discussion
This study was intended to investigate the empirical
association between psychological mindedness and
desirable therapist attributes. The results suggest
that PM is related in predicted ways to therapist self-
understanding, working alliance, and clinician
empathy. PM was also negatively associated with
self-understanding recognition scores, as expected,
and consistent with other research which suggests
PM is associated with better psychological well-
being (Trudeau & Reich, 1995) and emotional
adjustment (Bagby et al., 1994). These results
suggest that positive therapist attributes are related
to psychological mindedness.
Limitations
The study has several limitations. First, no gender
differences were found in this sample. Gender
differences would however be expected. Shill and
Lumley (2002) reported that females were more
psychologically minded than males. However, due to
the small sample size and small proportion of males
in this study it is likely that we simply did not have
the power to detect such difference. Thus, we would
encourage further research to investigate gender
differences. Second, although there is no reason
not to expect these findings to generalise to a wider
population of therapists, the sample was small and
from a discrete geographical area and as such further
research would be desirable to confirm the generali-
sability of the findings.
Third, and the main limitation, is the use of self-
report methods of data collection. The measures we
used are well validated and widely used, but none-
theless self-report methods are vulnerable to de-
mand characteristics and social desirability effects.
As such, we would encourage further research to
extend this study by examining the relation of
psychological mindedness to measures of social
desirability as well as to more observable objective
outcome measures, such as peer reports, and client-
outcome data.
Implications for research and practice
Currently, there is debate on the role of personal
therapy as part of training (e.g. Daw & Joseph,
2007), and although these results do not support the
idea of person therapy per se as the vehicle for
personal development, they do lend support to the
notion that it is essential that therapeutic training
does somehow focus on personal development and
the cultivation of PM.
The key implication is that PM may be a main
ingredient in what makes for an effective therapist.
The question is raised as to whether therapeutic
training emphasises PM to an appropriate extent?
What is it in training that contributes to the
development of PM? Or is it that we expect trainees
to come with a high level of PM and training is
simply to teach skills? There are several questions for
future research. First, there are research questions
around training itself. In what way do training
courses take PM into account in their selection
process? In what way do training courses attempt
to foster PM in trainees? Second, there are research
questions around the development of PM itself.
Table I. Means, standard deviations and correlations among PM, WAI, JSPE and SUIP Scales.
Variable M SD PM JSPE WAI SUIP (AV)
PM 143.62 9.92
JSPE 120.04 9.17 .56**
WAI 187.38 20.63 .36* .16
SUIP (SU) 3.69 0.52 .40* .22 .04
SUIP (RECOG) 5.79 3.22 �.37* .01 �.11 �.15
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2 tailed).
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2 tailed).
JSPE, Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy; PM, Psychological Mindedness Scale; WAI, Working Alliance Inventory; SUIP (SU), Self
Understanding of interpersonal patterns level of self understanding; SUIP (RECOG), Self Understanding of interpersonal patterns
recognition score.
Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes 235
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Attempts to develop PM through personal devel-
opment groups, personal therapy, and so on may be
common but it is not well documented that these
serve to facilitate PM effectively. While qualitative
research tells us that therapists value personal
therapy and perceive it to have contributed to their
PM, such research does not provide evidence that
personal therapy has actually served to facilitate PM.
What we need is stronger empirical statistical evi-
dence that those who experience personal therapy
show higher levels of PM. Personal therapy is only
one vehicle, and research is also needed into other
ways in which PM may be facilitated.
However, PM is not an issue only relevant to the
trainee therapist. It would also seem to us to be
central to our continuing professional development.
Practically, the main implication is the need for
reflection into our own levels of PM. As therapists
we too can become stuck in ways of perceiving. It
might even be suggested that therapeutic training in
core models serves to thwart PM insofar as thera-
pists become blinkered to other ways of perceiving.
How do we as therapists maintain our PM? Are some
therapies better equipped than others to help thera-
pists develop PM and to work with clients whose
problems have their roots in low PM.
Conclusions
In conclusion, results show that therapists with
higher levels of psychological mindedness have a
higher level of empathy toward clients, greater
self-understanding, and ability to develop working
alliance.
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Biographies
Becky Daw is a clinical psychologist employed at
St Mary’s CAMHS in London. Prior, she was a
trainee on the University of Warwick clinical psy-
chology training programme, for which the present
study was part of her research thesis.
Stephen Joseph is Professor of Psychology,
Health and Social Care at the University of Notting-
ham and an Honorary Consultant Psychologist in
Psychotherapy in Nottinghamshire NHS Healthcare
Trust.
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