Judgments About Candidates for Psychotherapy: The Influence of Social Class and Insight-Verbal Ability

This study investigated the influence of patients' social class, patients' insight-verbal ability, and therapists' social class origins on therapists' judgments regarding the use of psychotherapy. Both high patient social class and high insight-verbal ability enhanced the probability of selection for psychotherapy, with some evidence that the latter factor was more important. Depending on the social class of the therapist, the mode of presentation of the patient, and the degree of responsibility of the therapist for the patient's treatment and welfare, status homophily is believed to reinforce or weaken the tendency to overselect upper-class patients for psychotherapy.