Retraction of Gupta et al. (2018)

Reports the retraction of "Client laughter in psychodynamic psychotherapy: Not a laughing matter" by Shudarshana Gupta, Clara E. Hill and Dennis M. Kivlighan Jr. (Journal of Counseling Psychology, 2018[Jul], Vol 65[4], 463-473). The following article is being retracted (https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000272). This retraction is at the request of coauthors Kivlighan and Hill 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Maryland Psychotherapy Clinic and Research Laboratory (MPCRL) who either had not been asked to provide consent or had withdrawn consent for their data to be included in the research. Gupta was 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 2018-33326-005.) We studied 814 client laughter events nested within 330 sessions nested within 33 clients nested within 16 therapists at one community clinic in which doctoral student therapists provided psychodynamic psychotherapy to adult community clients. Each laughter event in Sessions 1 to 5 and 16 to 20 was rated for cheerfulness, politeness, reflectiveness, contemptuousness, and nervousness. Across all clients, there was an average of about one laughter even per session. The average laughter event lasted 3.5 seconds, and was characterized primarily by politeness and reflectiveness. Overall amount of client laughter and the characteristics of client laughter did not change across sessions. Most of the variance in the laughter characteristics was at the session level, with less variance attributable to clients and therapists. When client attachment avoidance was high, laughter was less cheerful and more contemptuous. When client attachment anxiety was high, laughter was more nervous. Sessions with more reflective laughter were evaluated more positively by clients, and therapists whose clients had more reflective laughter had more positive client session evaluations. Furthermore, within a therapist's caseload, clients with the most nervous and contemptuous laughter evaluated sessions most positively. Implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).