Matching Therapists' Predicates: An in Vivo Test of Effectiveness

Abstract

The theory of neurolinguistic programming predicts that a therapist's matching of a client's primary representational system, as expressed in the client's predicates, should result in increased therapist's rapport and social influence. This hypothesis was tested in an actual interview situation. Six relatively inexperienced therapists, two each in predicate matching, predicate mismatching, and predicate no-matching conditions, conducted a 30-min. interview with nine undergraduate student volunteers each, for a total of 54 subjects. After the appropriate interview condition was completed, subjects rated their therapists on the Counselor Rating Form and the Counseling Evaluation Inventory. No significant differences among the three conditions on any of the measures were found. Results are compared with those of previous research on assessment and primary representational system matching in analogue situations.