The examination of moderating role of therapists' self-efficacy in relationship between locus of control and therapeutic alliance

The relationship between therapeutic alliance and therapist characteristics is a well-researched topic. The subject of this research is moderating role of therapists' self-efficacy in relationship between locus of control and therapeutic alliance. Participants of this research were graduate students in clinical psychology who are or were conducting supervised sessions as a part of the program. Participants answered Demographic and Educational Information Form, Locus of Control Scale, and Turkish versions of Counselling Activities Self-Efficacy Scales and Working Alliance Inventory-Short Form-Therapist. Therapeutic alliance and locus of control is found to have a negative correlation, the level of statistical significance approaching to p<0.05. The relationship between therapeutic alliance and locus of control was stronger and statistically significant in internal control subscale of Locus of Control Scale. The relationship between therapists' self-efficacy and locus of control was not statistically significant. There was a moderate and statistically significant relationship found between therapists' self-efficacy and therapeutic alliance. There is no interaction between locus of control and therapists' self-efficacy. Both variables were independently related to therapeutic alliance. In addition, therapists' psychotherapy approach added to previous analysis and similar results were yielded. More exploratory analyses were run by replacing predictor variable with internal control subscale and yielded similar results with other analyses. It is considered that relationships between internal locus of control and motivation, problem solving, lower stress and psychological symptoms are connected to therapeutic alliance via clinical psychology trainees' psychotherapy process and preparation before upon an investigation of related literature. Implications of the findings in terms of future research and psychotherapy training is discussed.