ABSTRACT
Therapy processes and outcomes are influenced by both client and therapist pretherapy characteristics and extra therapy events (Beutler & Hill, 1992). Some pretherapy characteristics are relatively stable over time and are not subject to direct influence in therapy, for example, demo graphic variables such as gender, age, and race. Other pre therapy characteristics (e.g., personality variables such as coping styles, gender identity, and racial identity), although often stable, can be targets of therapeutic effort and subject to change during treatment. Yet other pretherapy character istics (e.g., expectations, attitudes, and distress levels) are even more transient and are often addressed in therapy. Extratherapy events occur outside of the therapist-client interaction during the course of therapy and have an impact on the nature and outcome of therapy (e.g., personal events, thoughts about therapy, world disasters). As with the dis tinction between process and outcome, the distinction be tween pretherapy characteristics, process, and extratherapy events sometimes becomes blurred because they are so intertwined.
