psychological mindedness and therapist attributes

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This article was downloaded by: [University of Bath] On: 26 November 2014, At: 05:09 Publisher: Routledge Informa 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: Linking research with practice Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcpr20 Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes Becky Daw a & Stephen Joseph b a St Mary's CAMHS , Paddington Green , London, UK b School of Sociology and Social Policy , University of Nottingham , UK Published online: 12 Oct 2009. To cite this article: Becky Daw & Stephen Joseph (2010) Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes, Counselling and Psychotherapy Research: Linking research with practice, 10:3, 233-236 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733140903226982 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 1: Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes

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

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes

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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Page 3: Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes

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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Page 4: Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes

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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Page 5: Psychological mindedness and therapist attributes

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.

References

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Conte, H.R., & Ratto, R. (1997). Self-report measures of

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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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