Group therapist self-disclosure: Development and validation of a scale

Developed the Group Therapist Orientation Scale consisting of 20 Likert-type items designed to measure attitudes toward therapist self-disclosure in group psychotherapy. With an original sample of 143 Ss the scale demonstrated reasonable internal consistency or item homogeneity. Validity data from 5 separate additional samples suggest that scores on the Group Therapist Orientation Scale related meaningfully to actual behavior in a group therapy context. Moreover, scores on the scale were associated with number of years experience as a group psychotherapist, involvement in encounter groups as both a leader and participant, and theoretical orientation.