The Power of Clients’ Feedback in Therapy

Research consistently shows that when clients give feedback about how they feel therapy is going, usually after each session, the therapy alliance–one of the strong predictors of successful outcome–is more positive, therapy dropouts are reduced, and those clients whom therapists predict will do poorly in therapy actually do better than expected. Feedback is important not only in therapy but in supervision. Therapists who know specifically how to get feedback from their clients–what to ask for and when and how to ask–will do better therapy and have fewer dropouts. Many therapists mistakenly believe that they know how therapy is going and how their clients feel about therapy, but research shows that therapists’ perceptions about these things often differ from that of their clients’.