Gender self-confidence and social influence: Impact on working alliance

Abstract

The authors investigated the relationships between the counselor's gender self-confidence, the counselor's use of social influence within the counseling session, and the counselor's sex in relation to the counseling relationship. These attributes were studied with regard to how deeply a therapeutic working alliance developed between the counselor and the client. Results support the importance of counselor characteristics on the counselor-client alliance. Implications for teaching, research, and practice are presented.