Impact of pre-treatment perfectionism on therapeutic alliance and outcome in the short-term treatment of depression

The present study examined the impact of pre-treatment perfectionism on therapeutic alliance and outcome in the short-term treatment of depression. The data for this study was drawn from a short-term clinical trial that treated 66 depressed clients with process-experiential or cognitive-behavioral therapy (Watson et al. 2003). The study attempted to replicate research findings by Blatt et al. (1995); (1996) on the TDCRP data set from the NIMH. Results of this study demonstrated that pre-treatment perfectionism significantly predicted poorer outcome in male clients. Early working alliance significantly predicted positive outcome in both male and female clients, with pre-treatment perfectionism significantly predicting outcome over and above the WAI in the male sample. Although not shown to be significant, a mediating role of WAI in the relationship of pre-treatment prefectionism and outcome is suggested. Findings are restricted by small sample size.