ABSTRACT
A test often utilised in conjunction with client-centred therapy to evaluate the individual’s self-esteem in their own terms. The Q-sort consists of a set of cards, each of which provides a short statement about character or personality that may be positive, neutral or negative. Clients are asked to sort the cards into piles that express how closely the statements fit with their own self-concept (e.g. ‘very like me’ and ‘unlike me’). When all the cards have been sorted, the client is asked to sort them again, but this time in terms of their ideal self – ‘myself as I would like to be’. The similarity or otherwise between the two sets of card-sorts provides a correlation coefficient indicative of the individual’s self-esteem. Among other uses, the Q-sort has been employed in studies of the efficacy of client-centred therapy.
