ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: This study examines how therapist emotional response/countertransference (CT) develops during treatment for patients with personality disorders (PDs) and how pre-treatment patient factors (severity of personality pathology, PD category, level of symptom distress) predict CT responses. Secondly, we explored associations between patient clinical outcome and CT. METHOD: A longitudinal, observational study including 1956 patients with personality pathology treated at psychotherapy units within specialist mental health services. Therapists' emotional response was repeatedly assessed by the Feeling Word Checklist-Brief Version (FWC-BV) with three subscales-Inadequate, Confident, and Idealized. RESULTS: Levels of Inadequate CT were lowest and stable over time while Confident and Idealized increased over time. Greater severity of personality pathology and borderline PD predicted higher initial Inadequate, lower initial Confident and decreasing Inadequate over time. Antisocial PD predicted decreasing Confident. Number of PD criteria had higher impact on therapist CT than level of symptom distress. Clinical improvement was associated with decreasing Inadequate. CONCLUSION: Therapists reported predominantly Confident CT when working with PD patients. More severe personality pathology, and borderline PD, specifically, predicted more negative CT initially, but the negative CT decreased over time. Patients who did not improve were associated with increasing Inadequate.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The Feeling Word Checklist (FWC) is a self-report questionnaire designed to assess therapists' countertransference (CT) feelings. The primary aim of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a brief, 12-item version of the Feeling Word Checklist (FWC-BV). The second aim was to validate the factor structure by examining the associations between the FWC-BV factors, patients' personality pathology and therapeutic alliance (TA). METHODS: Therapists at 13 different outpatient units within the Norwegian Network of Personality Disorders participated, and the study includes therapies for a large sample of patients (N = 2425) with personality pathology. Over a period of 2.5 years, therapists completed the FWC-BV for each patient in therapy every 6 months. Statistical methods included exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analysis. Internal consistency was estimated using Mc Donald's coefficient Omega (ωt). The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV - Axis II (SCID II) and Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) were used as diagnostic instruments, and patient-rated TA was assessed using the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI-SR). RESULTS: Factor analyses revealed three clinically meaningful factors: Inadequate, Idealised and Confident. These factors had acceptable psychometric properties. Most notably, a number of borderline PD criteria correlated positively with the factors Inadequate and Idealised, and negatively with the factor Confident. All the factors correlated significantly with at least one of the WAI-SR subscales. CONCLUSIONS: The FWC-BV measures three clinically meaningful aspects of therapists' CT feelings. This brief version of the FWC seems satisfactory for use in further research and in clinical contexts.
