Citation/Abstract

Perceived therapist effectiveness: An examination of Orthodox Jewish adolescent sample

The following study empirically tested whether Modem Orthodox Jewish adolescents prefer therapists with similar religious affiliations to themselves as assessed by their ratings of importance of having a therapist of that religious affiliation, their perceived comfort level, and perceived effectiveness of therapists of different religious affiliations across three different problem types. 120 Modem Orthodox adolescents completed a survey that required them to read three vignettes that described three different problems that adolescents may have. For each vignette the participant was asked to evaluate an Orthodox therapist, a non-Orthodox therapist who is familiar with Jewish customs and beliefs, and a non-Jewish therapist on three criteria: how effective the therapist would be, how important it would be to see that type of therapist, and how comfortable they would be talking to that therapist. Results indicated that adolescents who scored higher on a religiosity scale preferred having an Orthodox therapist while those who scored lower on the scale preferred not having an Orthodox therapist. No significant differences were found for preference of therapist's religious affiliation across the problem types. The implications of the findings for school psychologists as well as limitations and directions for future research are discussed.