A comparison of patients' preferences for psychotherapy with psychotherapists' preferences for delivering psychotherapy in China.

Despite the evidence indicating that accommodating preferences leads to better outcomes, we currently know very little about what psychotherapists prefer to deliver and whether this matches patient preferences. This research aimed to understand the degree of mismatching between patients' preferences in psychotherapy and psychotherapists' preferred psychotherapy delivery in Chinese clinical contexts. We utilized three samples from two different Chinese clinical contexts. Study 1 consisted of two independent samples of patients (N = 301) and psychotherapists (N = 1,054). The Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences patient and therapist versions were administered to assess preferences. In Study 2, a paired patient-psychotherapist sample (Npsychotherapists = 155, Npatients = 3,060) was used to replicate Study 1 findings. Results from both studies indicated two significant areas of mismatch. First, psychotherapists had a stronger preference for their patients to take the lead in psychotherapy when compared with lay patients (d = 0.74∼0.82). Second, psychotherapists showed a stronger preference for emotional intensity than patients (d = 0.57∼0.62). These differences were relatively consistent across psychotherapists' theoretical orientations and personal psychotherapy experiences, with some variation linked to psychotherapists' clinical experience. Psychotherapists' preferred delivery styles, as compared with patients' actual preferences, are consistent with psychotherapists' own preferences (as patients) and may reflect a false consensus bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).