Therapist paraphrases are integral to clinical interviewing and are believed to promote common-factor variables like empathy and congruence. However, few studies have used an experimental design to examine therapist paraphrases independent of other treatment components. The purpose of this study was to study the degree to which therapist paraphrases influence outcome expectancy, treatment credibility, empathy, congruence, and the working alliance compared to another verbal response type: the minimal encourager. Participants were assigned to hear two therapy interactions in a random order. These interactions contained different levels of therapist paraphrases and minimal encouragers. Multivariate analyses revealed that paraphrases generally resulted in more favorable perceptions of therapy interactions. Follow-up analyses revealed that paraphrases generally produced higher scores across all variables, but the difference was statistically significant only for empathy and congruence. These results provide evidence that paraphrases make therapists appear more empathetic and congruence, at least compared to using minimal encouragers alone
