Abstract
The centrality of psychological mindedness (PM) to aspects of psychotherapy including client selection, intervention process, and outcome theory has received general consensus but rests on a limited and apparently inconsistent empirical foundation. This study aimed to examine the relationship of PM to psychotherapeutic outcome, and variables related to therapeutic process and client disposition, using the recently developed, and psychometrically tested. Psychological Mindedness Scale (PMS; see Conte, Ratto & Karasu, 1996). This study was also interested in exploring the relationships between outcome and therapeutic alliance and dispositional variables including motivation and efficacy expectancy, selected because of their previously demonstrated relationship to outcome, in order to develop understanding and prediction regarding the complex interaction of these variables. Predictions were tested using the PMS with adult mental health clients receiving 8-10 sessions of psychotherapeutic intervention. Results failed to support the hypotheses that change in PM would be related to outcome, however, as reported in several previous studies, baseline PM was found to be linked with outcome. These results were used to propose a model of relationships between the investigated variables and outcome. Finally suggestions for future research were based on a hypothetical link between change in PM with outcome and from limitations identified in this study.