The effect of personality traits and state trait anxiety on the therapeutic alliance in psychotherapists

The aim of this study was to determine the therapeutic alliance levels of psychotherapists, and to examine their relationship with personality traits, anxiety levels, therapy context and other sociodemographic characteristics. The sample of the study consists of 177 actively therapy practicing psychotherapists, including psychologists, clinical psychologists, and psychiatrists. The Sociodemographic Information Form, Therapeutic Alliance Scale Therapist Form, Five Factor Personality Traits Scale, and State Trait Anxiety Scale were online administered to the participants who accepted to participate in the study. As a result of the analyzes, a negative significant relationship was observed between the therapeutic alliance level perceived by psychotherapists and state-trait anxiety. Positive relationships were observed between the therapeutic alliance and personality traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience and extraversion and negative relationships with neuroticism. At the same time, conscientiousness and agreeableness personality traits, and state anxiety were found to have predictive effects on the therapeutic alliance total score. At the same time, it was observed that the therapeutic alliance levels increased with age, the number of clients and years of practice increased. Considering the therapy context, no significant difference was found between the therapeutic alliance levels established in online therapy and face-to-face therapies. As a result of the research, variables significantly related to the therapeutic alliance levels established by actively practicing psychotherapists were examined and identified. Of all the variables examined in this study, it was concluded that conscientiousness, agreeableness and state anxiety were important factors in predicting the level of therapeutic alliance in psychotherapists, and that the level of therapeutic alliance was equally strong for the online and face-to-face therapy context. The research findings were discussed within the framework of the related literature.