The paper under review is a 1978 article titled “Effects of Race on Psychotherapy Process and Outcome: An Exploratory Investigation” and written by Enrico E. Jones. The main aim of the research paper is to explore the effect race of the client and the therapist has on the therapy process and short-term outcomes of therapy. This critique will explore the sample, method, and results of the study as well as evaluate the inferences the writer drew from the research.
In the literature review of the paper the author notes that the success of therapy depends as much on the therapist as it does on the client. One of the variants of therapist-client matching, apart from other investigated aspects like personality similarity, is race. The writer notes inconsistencies in studies that precede his and this is one of the gaps in the knowledge he seeks to exploit. Carkhuff and Pierce (1967) reported a positive correlation between the racial similarity of the client and therapist and the depth of the self-exploration of the client. Further inconsistencies are noted in three studies that come up with three different conclusions regarding the perceived efficacy of a therapist being a function of either race or experience. Banks et al. (1972) noted that a therapist’s race is more important than the therapist’s experience, while Cimbolic (1972) asserted that a therapist’s experience is more important than their race. Interestingly, Gardener’s research has findings that suggest both experience and race are key factors in the success of the therapeutic relationship (1971).
The writer rightly notes that the studies that preceded his lack the proper methodology to reveal the effect race has on the therapy process or outcome. First, the studies that he reviews do not use professionally trained therapists; most used lay counselors. Secondly, the “clients” in the studies were not really under distress as real clients are; college students were used. And finally, the results were usually gathered from a single interview, not from an extended interaction. The author insightfully notes that these studies lack the academic rigor that would have made them authoritative in the matter of race influencing the therapy process and outcomes of therapy.
Other limitations the author notes are a biased sample, a lack of record of desired therapy outcomes and that the mental state of an interview is markedly different from the mental state of a therapy session. Client-centered therapy is also the dominant method used in the studies that the author reviews and he notes that this limits the studies’ applicability to other therapeutic methods (Bergin and Jaspers, 1969; Garfield and Bergin, 1971). The author notes that due to these limitations the studies he reviews are invalid as they measured different aspects of the therapy process, such as racial attitudes and person perception, instead of the effects of race on therapy (Cimbolic, 1972).
These difficulties cut out the author’s work as he seeks to address all the complications in his research. The first thing the researcher sets out to do is make his study-specific and explore the therapeutic process itself. The researcher opts to use the naturalistic research methodology in this study. This methodology is apt as the data recording does not interfere with the conventional proceedings of therapy; data recorded is reflective of a realistic therapy situation, not a mere simulation of therapy.
The researcher aims at having a homogenous sample in terms of age, sex, and psychological distress. The purpose of this serves is to make sure that only racial difference is measured as a significant difference in the sample. The author notes that literature in the field of psychology lays emphasis on a client’s socioeconomic status affecting the process and outcome of therapy. The researcher uses a sample that is similar in terms of education in order to get rid of this difference in socioeconomic status. However, the researcher does not back his assumption with studies showing that people with the same level of education are of similar socioeconomic status. Furthermore, there could be a significant difference in the socioeconomic status of people of the two races that were used as respondents to the study. Consequently, this assumption is unwarranted and indefensible, thus making the study less dependable.
Another assumption that the author makes without appeal to any previous work is that the dominant pairings in a therapeutic situation are a male therapist and a female client. The author clearly provides evidence from previous research showing that black men hardly rely on therapy, but does little to show that white females are the predominant attendees of therapy among the white race. The above assumption also implies that most of the therapists are male; an assumption that is not backed by any statistics. This is a central assumption in the study and the fact that it seems to have no basis in research, apart from the author’s whims, makes the method flawed and the sample less “ecologically representative” than the author would have us believe.
The results and measures used in the study were reliable and valid as they were used in other previous researches. The statistical treatment of data is beyond reproach and the researcher uses proper statistical methods to analyze and present the data too. The results showed no significant difference in terms of the outcome of therapy across all the four pairings of client and therapist i.e. black therapist and black client, black therapist and white client, white therapist and white client, and white therapist and black client. Differences, however, were noted, in the therapy process especially among the black clients.
The results and the discussion the author presents can be called to question. First is the issue of choosing therapists that are more willing to work with ethnic minorities than ones who aren’t. This skews the results markedly and is unrepresentative of a real-life situation, this makes the research out of touch with real presenting situations. Secondly, the sample is quite small and not as representative as the researcher tries to make it appear and this calls into question the generalizability of the research findings. Thirdly, the researcher does not address the problem of using generic categories. The researcher uses clients that are classified as neurotic, yet does not clarify the kind of neurosis that the sample suffers from; this makes the sample lack homogeneity.
In conclusion, I am of the opinion that the results and inferences drawn from any research should not be removed from the social realities that are present during the time of the research. This research is from an epoch when racial strife was still rife in the USA. It is possible, then, that the difference in the therapy process noted could have been borne of sociopolitical realities more than it was of psychological reality. The research feels constrained and narrow, albeit an improvement on the studies reviewed by the author.
References
Banks, G., Berenson, B., & Carkhuff, R. (1967). The effects of counselor race and training upon counseling process with Negro clients in initial interviews. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 23(1), 70-72.
Bergin, A., & Jasper, L. (1969). Correlations of empathy in psychotherapy: A replication. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 74(4), 477-481.
Carkhuff, R., & Pierce, R. (1967). Differential effects of therapist race and social class upon patient depth of self-exploration in the initial clinical interview. Journal of Counsulting Psychology, 31(6), 632-634.
Cimbolic, P. (1972). Counselor race and experience effects on black clients. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 39(2), 328-332.
Gardner, L. (1971). The therapeutic relationship under varying conditions of race. Psychotherapy: Therapy, Research and Practice, 8(1), 78-87.
Garfield, S., & Bergin, A. (1972). Therapeutic conditions and outcome. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 77(2), 108-114.