The Client Attachment to Therapist Scale (CATS) in a Greek Clinical Population: A Validation Study

摘要

Client attachment to therapist has been long considered a prominent process variable in psychotherapy research. The purpose of this study was to translate in Greek and evaluate the structure, reliability, convergent and discriminant validity of the well-known and widely administered Client Attachment to Therapist Scale (CATS) with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in a clinical sample of 153 clients of different treatment modalities and at different agencies. The results indicated that the EFA resulted in a model almost identical to the Mallinckrodt, Gantt and Coble’s [1] original model after the deletion of six items. Moreover, the findings indicated adequate internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent and discriminant validity of the three factors. Normalized scores were provided to help mental health professionals interpret the scale scores. In conclusion, CATS is a valid and reliable tool to measure client attachment to therapist, whose use can promote psychotherapeutic process and outcome. Thus, more validation studies should be conducted in several cultural contexts to better understand its structure and psychometric characteristics.