Brief Therapy at a University Counseling Center: Working Alliance, Readiness to Change, and Symptom Severity

The authors investigated whether students receiving short-term individual counseling at a university counseling center showed progress as evidenced by perceived client and counselor outcomes and the roles that client readiness to change and working alliance played in this setting. The results indicated that the counselor reports, not the client reports, reflected statistically significant change in client symptoms. Changes in symptom severity were not associated with working alliance and readiness to change.