Therapist and patient actions in 'good' psychotherapy sessions

Experienced clinicians' ratings of the "good" to "poor" quality of 46 therapy sessions were correlated with their ratings of various therapist and patient actions. As predicted, significant positive correlations were obtained between the goodness ratings and the emphasis given by therapists and patients to actions involving emotional expression and to explorations of the patients' thoughts and feelings pertaining to their self-concepts and their relationships with therapists and significant others.