Therapist Directiveness and Client Reactance in the Administration of Homework in Therapy with College Students

The present study used an analog design with three vignettes portraying homework administrations at three levels of therapist directiveness (low, medium, and high) and the Therapeutic Reactance Scale to measure participant reactance. Participants (N = 436) read the vignettes and completed the Homework Completion Scale (HCS), Counseling Continuation Scale (CCS), Counselor Rating Form-Short (CRF-S) Attractiveness and Expertness subscales. A repeated measures analysis of variance revealed significant differences between low and high reactant groups on the HCS and CCS for the High and Medium directiveness homework administrations. These results suggest that therapist directiveness does interact with client reactance in the administration of homework.