Perceptions of hope and expectancy in parents and guardians beginning family therapy with their child

The Common Factors Model was introduced in 1992 by Michael Lambert suggesting that four factors that exist in all forms of psychotherapy are what account for positive therapeutic outcomes. The four common factors posited by Lambert include: Extratherapeutic Factors, The Therapeutic Relationship, Hope and Expectancy and Specific Factors. Marriage and family therapy is one form of psychotherapy that has taken an interest in The Common Factors Model and dedicated various amounts of research to understand connections between the two philosophies. Despite the efforts to understand common factors that exist in marriage and family therapy, very little research has been done studying the relationship between the common factor Hope and Expectancy, and marriage and family therapy. The current study aimed to fill that gap, by exploring the relationship between marriage and family therapy, and the common factor hope and expectancy through the lens of Snyder’s Hope Theory. In this study, a mixed methods sequential embedded designed was implemented to examine the relationship that exists between marriage and family therapy and the common factor Hope and Expectancy. The results indicated that levels of hope and expectancy were high in parents/guardians who were going to start participating family therapy with their child. The high levels of hope and expectancy were likely due to the activation of an interaction between extratherapeutic factors and hope and expectancy. Some of the extratherapeutic factors involved in the interaction were specific to marriage and family therapy, while others can be found in all forms of psychotherapy.