Assessment questionnaire on the personal style of the therapist PST-Q

Abstract

We posit the Personal Style of the Therapist (PST) construct. It is defined as ‘the set of characteristics that each therapist applies in every psychotherapeutic situation, thus shaping the main attributes of the therapeutic act’. Its background is examined and its main traits are described. It includes five bipolar dimensions: Instructional, Expressive, Engagement, Attentional and Operative. It may be assessed through a self-descriptive inventory. We list the psychometric properties found when the instrument was applied to a sample of N = 189 therapists in Argentina. We calculated descriptive statistics of the sample (means and standard deviations) and reliability coefficients (test–retest and Cronbach's alpha). To examine the dimension of the data a factor analysis of the main components was carried out using Varimax rotation. Results and potential applications of the instrument are discussed.