Introduction

1. Introduction Design and Method Results, and Conclusions Barcelona Buenos Aires Project Compatibility Between Therapist’s Personal Style and Patient’s Personality Sergi Corbella*1, Héctor Fernández-Álvarez2, Luis Botella1, Fernando García2, Julio LoBianco2, and Adrián Canizzarro2 1Facultat de Psicologia, Ciències de l’Educació i l’Esport Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University (sergics@blanquerna.url.es) 2Fundación Aiglé *This work was carried out while the first author was holder of a grant awardedby the Ministry of Education and Culture, Spain (AP98-36526706). Every psychotherapy is based on the meeting between the therapist and the patient. From the early 1970s, several common factors were identified, stressing the importance of quality in the therapeutic relationship as a determining factor for the results in any therapy (Bachelor and Horvath, 1999). In this sense, the significance of some variables in the therapist and some variables in the patient is crucial to understand the co-construction of the therapeutic alliance. Studies on the style of therapist (Fernández-Álvarez, 1998; Beutler and Harwood, 2000) and works on the patient variables influencing psychotherapy (Beutler, Clarkin and Bongar, 2000; Winter, 1992) have inspired the study on the compatibility between therapist and patient. The BCN-BsAs Project is a multicentre study being carried out in Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, and the Aiglé Foundation, Buenos Aires, with the aim of getting a deeper knowledge of the fitting between therapist and patient. In this work, we present some results about BCN-BsAs Project. Among the wide amount of therapist variables, we focus on the personal style that the therapist shows during the session. The Personal Style of the Therapist -PST- has been defined as the set of singular conditions that lead a therapist to perform his task in a determined manner (Fernández-Álvarez, 1998). It refers to the usual characteristics that every therapist imposes on his task as a result of his/her particular way of doing things, beyond the working approach they use and the specific requirements demanded by the intervention. The most significant functions we have identified are as follows: Instructional (flexibility versus rigidity), Attentional (broad focused versus narrow focused), Expressive (distance versus closeness), Operational (directive, patterned versus little directive, little patterned), Engagement (lesser degree versus greater degree), and Promoting (action-addressed versus insight-addressed). This enumeration is neither intended to be exhaustive of the actions carried out in therapy nor to account for such a complex process as a whole. It aims to offer the most comprehensive vision about how therapists give their personal hallmark to the way they perform their tasks. In practice, these functions are performed in an integrated manner and, as a whole, they express the dispositions, features and attitudes that every therapist manifests during his/her professional practice. The PST-Q (Personal Style of the Therapist-assessment Questionnaire), enables us to get some scores in every function in order to establish the personal profile of each therapist. The importance of studying the relationship between the interventions of the therapist and the client variables is what promoted the Systematic Treatment Selection (STS) proposed by Beutler (Beutler and Clarkin, 1990; Beutler, Clarkin and Bongar, 2000). Two of the main patient variables that make up some of the STS dimensions are: (a) the patient's resistance; and (b) the patient's coping style. The results of research have provided empirical support to the relevance of resistance and coping style in the development of the psychotherapeutic process. In the BCN-BBAA Project, we assessed the patients' resistance and coping style through the corresponding items in the STS Self-Report. Bordin (1975, 1976) proposed that the establishment of a good alliance between therapist and patient was the key aspect in the process of change. Bordin defined working alliance through three main characteristics: (a) agreeing in the goals; (b) the level of concordance concerning the tasks to be developed; and (c) the development of a personal bond. The Working Alliance Inventory (Horvath and Greenberg, 1986) is based on the theoretical formulation developed by Bordin (1976). We assess alliance through the Working Alliance/Theory of Change Inventory (Duncan and Miller, 1999). The WATOCI is based on the short version of WAI (WAI-S; Tracey and Kokotovic, 1989). The psychotherapeutic results are assessed through the CORE Outcome Measure (Core System Group, 1998) and the SCL-90R (Derogatis, 1977). To carry out this research, the participation of therapists and patients, who agreed to take part in this study, was essential. The participants in this study were consecutively admitted adult outpatients to three cooperating, private psychotherapeutic clinics in Spain and Argentina (N = 304; 61,7% women, 38,3% men; mean age = 30.4n7wj2nfu years, SD = 10.45; 100% Caucasian). Those therapists that agreed to take part in the BCN-BsAs Project were accredited psychotherapists (N = 48; 76.9% women, 15.4% men; mean age = 37.09, SD = 7.86), developing their practice in some of the three centres cooperating in the research.62.5% of psychotherapists were from Argentina, and 37.5% were Spanish. Therapists answered Personal Style of the Therapist Questionnaire PST-Q - Therapeutic Alliance: WATOCI (based on the short version of WAI ) - Symptoms: SCL-90R - Outcome: CORE Outcome Mesure - Symptoms: SCL-90R - Outcome: CORE Outcome Mesure - Resistance and Coping Style: S.T.S (items from Self Report Version) - Therapeutic Alliance: WATOCI (based on the short version of WAI ) - Outcome: CORE Outcome Mesure - Therapeutic Alliance: WATOCI (based on the short version of WAI ) - Symptoms: SCL-90R - Outcome: CORE Outcome Mesure Final assessment (end of therapy or at 9 months from baseline) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 … 1 Intake Assesement Therapy End of Therapy Pre Therapy The correlations between functions in the personal style of therapist-questionnaire and patients' scores in resistance, coping style and symptom severity assessment instruments before the beginning of therapy are low and reach no statistical significance (p > 0.05). Data obtained from therapists and patients had some properties allowing for regression and mean comparison analyses to be commented in the next section.Those statistical analyses thought to be more convenient for each hypothesis were carried out. Mainly, they were regression and mean comparison analyses, whereas for one of the hypotheses the LISREL model (Jöreskog, 1989; Bollen, 1989) was used.