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BackGROUND
Interpersonal skills are the learned emotional and interpersonal patterns of behavior that allow some people to be more effective at navigating through difficult and complex interpersonal situations. The FIS performance-based method that was developed for understanding how therapists use their interpersonal skills in challenging situations in psychotherapy. Since the original task formation, the FIS task has been utilized in numerous studies, updated and expanded, and translated into 10 different languages.
A summary of the FIS performance analysis method, can be found here in an article by Anderson, Finkelstein, & Horvath, 2020). Participants are asked to imagine that they are in the middle of an interpersonal exchange. Participants watch several video recorded clips of actual therapy sessions that are performed by actors. At critical points, the video recording stops and participants are asked to respond to the client on the tape as if they were the therapist. These responses are recorded and coded by raters using the FIS coding manual. The performance analysis is used to rate helpers and therapists' job performance in this artificial, but realistic situation. The potential use of performance-based data is that it differs from self-reports of the participants (therapists) and also has shown some validity in predicting aspects of actual psychotherapy. As one example of these self-report issues in psychotherapy, all psychotherapists assessed that their psychotherapy outcomes were – on average – in the upper 50th percentile (Lambert, 2010). The initial development of FIS was for the practical purpose of selecting therapists in an initial study of therapist skills (Anderson, Crowley, et al., 2016).
A summary of the FIS performance analysis method, can be found here in an article by Anderson, Finkelstein, & Horvath, 2020). Participants are asked to imagine that they are in the middle of an interpersonal exchange. Participants watch several video recorded clips of actual therapy sessions that are performed by actors. At critical points, the video recording stops and participants are asked to respond to the client on the tape as if they were the therapist. These responses are recorded and coded by raters using the FIS coding manual. The performance analysis is used to rate helpers and therapists' job performance in this artificial, but realistic situation. The potential use of performance-based data is that it differs from self-reports of the participants (therapists) and also has shown some validity in predicting aspects of actual psychotherapy. As one example of these self-report issues in psychotherapy, all psychotherapists assessed that their psychotherapy outcomes were – on average – in the upper 50th percentile (Lambert, 2010). The initial development of FIS was for the practical purpose of selecting therapists in an initial study of therapist skills (Anderson, Crowley, et al., 2016).
FIS AND PSCYHOTHERAPY OUTCOME
Anderson, Crowley, Himawan, Holmberg, and Uhlin (2016) selected graduate students to be therapists based on having high vs. low facilitative interpersonal skills, as assessed both by self-report measures of empathic ability and judgments of behavior in videotaped interactions with a standard client. Half of the therapists of each facilitative level were clinical psychology doctoral students with at least two years of clinical training, and half were students in a non-helping doctoral program (e.g., biology, history). Clients, who were selected to have diagnosable problems but were not in therapy, were seen for seven sessions. Those therapists with high facilitative interpersonal skills had higher client outcomes and higher client- and therapist-rated working alliance than did therapists with low facilitative interpersonal skills. Importantly, the high facilitative doctoral students from non-helping disciplines were just as effective as were the high facilitative clinical psychology doctoral students.
Anderson, Ogles, Patterson, Lambert, and Vermersch (2009) used FIS as a continuous score in ratings from therapists at a Counseling Center and found that higher FIS therapists had clients who were more likely to report linear decreases in symptoms over time than lower FIS therapists. Based on these data, we would expect that FIS would predict the overall ability of relative novices entering into helping skills training and that the rate of learning helping skills over time would be greater among those who display higher initial levels of FIS.
The issue of training was again examined in a study in which the therapist FIS measure was administered prospectively, but therapists’ first training cases were used (Anderson, McClintock, Song, Himawan, & Patterson, 2013). These naturalistically observed cases, however, were not linearly predicted by therapist FIS. Instead, a curvilinear pattern emerged in which clients treated by therapists with higher FIS had more accelerated improvements during approximately the first half the therapy sessions when compared to clients treated by lower FIS therapists. However, the quadratic equation also revealed that the higher FIS therapists lost their advantage in later sessions and the initial rapid gains of clients with higher FIS therapists were lost in longer-term treatments (relative to lower FIS therapists).
Armstrong (2013) used a measure of therapist FIS in the McGill Psychotherapy Training project and found that therapist FIS related to client ratings on the Session Evaluation Questionnaire depth, smoothness, and arousal scales. Specifically, Armstrong found that therapist FIS items on verbal fluency, emotional expression, persuasiveness, and hopefulness were most predictive of these session outcomes
*This section contains excerpts from the Facilitative Interpersonal Skill Task and Rating Method Manual. For additional information about FIS research, psychometric properties, and utilization, please sign up for a research account, or request a copy of the manual.
Anderson, Ogles, Patterson, Lambert, and Vermersch (2009) used FIS as a continuous score in ratings from therapists at a Counseling Center and found that higher FIS therapists had clients who were more likely to report linear decreases in symptoms over time than lower FIS therapists. Based on these data, we would expect that FIS would predict the overall ability of relative novices entering into helping skills training and that the rate of learning helping skills over time would be greater among those who display higher initial levels of FIS.
The issue of training was again examined in a study in which the therapist FIS measure was administered prospectively, but therapists’ first training cases were used (Anderson, McClintock, Song, Himawan, & Patterson, 2013). These naturalistically observed cases, however, were not linearly predicted by therapist FIS. Instead, a curvilinear pattern emerged in which clients treated by therapists with higher FIS had more accelerated improvements during approximately the first half the therapy sessions when compared to clients treated by lower FIS therapists. However, the quadratic equation also revealed that the higher FIS therapists lost their advantage in later sessions and the initial rapid gains of clients with higher FIS therapists were lost in longer-term treatments (relative to lower FIS therapists).
Armstrong (2013) used a measure of therapist FIS in the McGill Psychotherapy Training project and found that therapist FIS related to client ratings on the Session Evaluation Questionnaire depth, smoothness, and arousal scales. Specifically, Armstrong found that therapist FIS items on verbal fluency, emotional expression, persuasiveness, and hopefulness were most predictive of these session outcomes
*This section contains excerpts from the Facilitative Interpersonal Skill Task and Rating Method Manual. For additional information about FIS research, psychometric properties, and utilization, please sign up for a research account, or request a copy of the manual.
BENEFITS OF FIS TASK UTILIZATION
- Easy utilization as an assessment tool for increase in therapist efficacy
- Saves time & money over a pre-post client outcomes assessment
- Provides reliable, standardized stimuli, which removes client-based variability when researching therapist effects
- Easy to administer
- A full 8-clip set takes under one hour to complete and requires only an internet enabled device and webcam
- Robustly linked to long-term therapy outcomes
- See background/research findings above for more info
FIS RESEARCH ACCOUNT
With a free research account, you will have access to the FIS Task version(s) required for your research. The stimulus clips are available in English, Portuguese, Norwegian Dutch, German, and Chinese. Five of these language versions are available through this website and the creators of these versions are listed below (and on the Collaborators page of this site:
There are also FIS Practice Situation versions of the clips as well as response demonstrations
The researchers page contains any manual(s) or other coding/training materials available for your research team. The researchers page also contains detailed instructions on how to set up the task, ways to avoid common participant mishaps, FAQs, and more.
The task pages will contain the FIS task in either the standard format, or in the format requested for your research. In the standard format, after an initial instructions clip, each participant will navigate through a page for each stimulus in a randomized order and asked to respond to each stimulus clip. Each stimulus page includes both a background clip (time in treatment, presenting concerns) and a stimulus clip. Customized versions of the task can be requested including various orders, forwarding to additional task links, etc.
If you are interested in a free research membership, please fill out our research application or request a free membership demo.
- FIS English Current (version 3)
- FIS English Ohio-New School (version 2, 2016)
- FIS English Original (version 1)
- FIS Portuguese (Alexandre Vaz, ISPA-University Institute)
- FIS Norwegian (Patrick Vogel & Truls Ryum Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
- FIS Chinese Subtitles (Xiubin Lin, Central China Normal University)
- FIS Dutch (Kane Steggles, Bangor University ; Kim de Jong, Leiden University)
There are also FIS Practice Situation versions of the clips as well as response demonstrations
- FIS Suicide (Bate, Yeshiva University, New York
- FIS Cultural Competency (Ohio team)
- FIS Text (Foley, New School for Social Research)
- FIS Response Demonstrations (by Jeremy Safran, see Training page)
The researchers page contains any manual(s) or other coding/training materials available for your research team. The researchers page also contains detailed instructions on how to set up the task, ways to avoid common participant mishaps, FAQs, and more.
The task pages will contain the FIS task in either the standard format, or in the format requested for your research. In the standard format, after an initial instructions clip, each participant will navigate through a page for each stimulus in a randomized order and asked to respond to each stimulus clip. Each stimulus page includes both a background clip (time in treatment, presenting concerns) and a stimulus clip. Customized versions of the task can be requested including various orders, forwarding to additional task links, etc.
If you are interested in a free research membership, please fill out our research application or request a free membership demo.