The effects of client–counselor racial matching on therapeutic outcome

This study explored the effects of ethnic/racial matching on psychotherapy outcomes via the number of counseling sessions attended by clients, using clinical data collected from a university’s counseling center. A total sample of 644 clients (193 men, 448 women) was selected and the ethnic/racial distribution of the sample comprised 499 White/European American (77.5%), 81 African American (12.6%), 33 Asian American (5.1%), and 31 Hispanic clients (4.8%). As a result of a multilevel mediation analysis, it was found that the clients working with counselors of matching ethnicity/race attended more number of counseling sessions than those with counselors of different ethnicity/race. Moreover, the ethnic/racial matching between clients and counselors led to a higher improvement of global assessment of function (GAF). The analysis also revealed that the client–counselor ethic/racial matching showed significant, direct effects on the improvement of GAF. The effects of ethnic/racial matching on the number of counseling sessions and GAF improvement significantly differed at the counselor-level. Clinical implications to multicultural counseling and training are provided.