title: The challenge of distinguishing figure from ground: reaction to Gelso's work on the real relationship.
abstract: The motives of the beginning psychotherapist for choosing his or her orientation are an underresearched issue in psychotherapy training. This study focuses on the role of personality-based factors, specifically the epistemological preferences of the therapist that Kolb (1984) has termed "learning style" (LS). The aim of the present study was to explore possible associations between psychology students' developing LSs and their choice of psychotherapeutic orientation (psychodynamic [PDT] vs. cognitive-behavioural [CBT]). Students in a psychologist's program (N = 175) took the Learning Style Inventory in their third semester and, before their formal choice, in their seventh semester. Besides a common trend toward radicalization or purification of their LS, the average PDT student tended to stick to the "feel and watch" style from the third semester to the seventh, whereas the CBT student tended to move toward "think and do." A cluster analysis revealed that the average movement among the CBT students was the result of the forces in two different subgroups, one toward "think" (and, more weakly, "watch"), the other toward "do" (and, more weakly, "feel").
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Dedham, MA 02026, USA. leigh@hms.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Leigh
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McCullough
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D011582:Psychological Theory