Prediction versus reflection in therapist demonstrations of understanding: three analogue experiments

Many forms of therapy deem it important for therapists to demonstrate to their clients that they understand the particular client's dilemma. The most common approach to therapists' demonstrations of understanding is the Rogerian method of reflection. Another approach to demonstrating understanding is to make accurate predictions of the client's behaviour. The purpose of the present experiments was to test the hypothesis that therapist predictions (predictive interactions) would be viewed by observers as more demonstrative of understanding the client than therapist reflections (reflective interactions) and therapist admissions of not understanding the client's problem (naive interactions). In each experiment, subjects were randomly assigned to conditions, read excerpts from an interview transcript, and then rated therapist understanding of the client's problems and therapist demonstrations of understanding. The results of all three experiments were consistent and indicated that: predictive interactions were judged as superior to reflective interactions and naive interactions on ratings of demonstrated understanding; reflective and naive interactions did not differ on any measure. These results question the utility of reflective interactions in clinical practice for communicating understanding to clients and support the notion that accurate therapist predictions of client behaviour may be more useful in demonstrating understanding. The results also indicate the need to study these phenomena more thoroughly in clinical settings.