Retraction of Morales et al. (2018)

Reports the retraction of "Therapist effects due to client racial/ethnic status when examining linear growth for client- and therapist-rated working alliance and real relationship" by Katherine Morales, Brian TaeHyuk Keum, Dennis M. Kivlighan Jr., Clara E. Hill and Charles J. Gelso (Psychotherapy, 2018[Mar], Vol 55[1], 9-19) https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000135. This retraction is at the request of coauthors Kivlighan, Hill, and Gelso after the results of an investigation by the University of Maryland Institutional Review Board (IRB). The IRB found that the study included data from between one and four therapy clients of the Maryland Psychotherapy Clinic and Research Laboratory (MPCRL) who either had not been asked to provide consent or had withdrawn consent for their data to be included in the research. Coauthors Morales and Keum were not responsible for obtaining and verifying participant consent but agreed to the retraction of this article (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2018-11631-003.) 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 (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).