Therapist effects due to client racial/ethnic status when examining linear growth for client- and therapist-rated working alliance and real relationship.

Using data from 3,263 sessions nested within 144 clients, nested within 19 therapists, we examined client- and therapist-rated working alliance (WA) and real relationship (RR) at Session 3 and growth in WA and RR across the course of open-ended psychodynamic psychotherapy for clients who identified as racial/ethnic minority (REM) or as White. To be included in the analyses, therapists had to work with at least 2 REM and 2 White clients. There were no significant therapist effects for the interaction between client- or therapist-rated WA and client REM status at Session 3, or for client- or therapist-rated RR and client REM status at Session 3. There were, however, significant therapist effects due to client REM status on the interaction between client-rated linear growth in WA and RR, showing that some therapists had stronger WA and RR growth with REM than that with White clients, whereas other therapists had stronger alliance growth with White than that with REM clients. There were significant therapist effects on therapist-rated linear growth in both WA and RR, which indicated that some therapists reported stronger WA and RR growth with all of their clients, whereas other therapists reported weaker WA and RR growth for all of their clients, although this differential WA and RR growth was not related to clients' REM status. Implications for practice and research are discussed in this paper. (PsycINFO Database Record