Professional Psychology: Research and Practice © 2018 American Psychological Association 2018, Vol. 49, No. 5-6, 336–344 0735-7028/18/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pro0000219 Adolescents’ Perceptions of Their Therapists’ Social Media Competency and the Therapeutic Alliance Jeanna Pagnotta, Fran C. Blumberg, Mary K. Alvord and Joseph G. Ponterotto Alvord, Baker & Associates, LLC, Rockville Fordham University and Chevy Chase, MD Adolescents’ lives are now experienced in sophisticated digital environments, potentially warranting their consideration as a distinct cultural group. As such, clinicians who work with this population may be expected to be conversant with their clients’ digital habits to establish an efficacious therapeutic alliance and bolster treatment outcomes. We investigated linkages between adolescents’ social media habits and therapeutic alliance ratings based on perceptions of their therapists’ social media competency and traditional multicultural competency (MCC). Seventy-seven 14- to 17-year-olds currently receiving therapy services completed an online survey assessing their social media habits, perceptions of their therapists’ social media competency and traditional MCC, and ratings of therapeutic alliance. Adoles- cents’ perceptions of therapists’ social media competency positively predicted therapeutic alliance ratings, regardless of variations in participants’ social media use. A positive relationship was also found between perceived traditional MCC and therapeutic alliance ratings. Finally, preliminary validation for a newly adapted measure of therapists’ perceived social media competency was demonstrated. These findings may be among the first to establish social media competency as a contemporary form of MCC, which may inform new avenues for training and professional development for psychologists working with adolescents. Public Significance Statement This study suggests that adolescents’ perceptions of their therapists’ social media competency may impact their perceptions of the therapeutic alliance. Additionally, the study introduces a new instrument for assessing perceptions of therapists’ social media competency. Keywords: adolescent psychotherapy, therapeutic alliance, multicultural competency, social media National surveys attest to adolescents’ heavy reliance on Media, 2012). Given their increasing ownership of smartphones social media as a vehicle for communication and self- and mobile devices, 92% of teens report going online daily, expression. “Social media” is operationalized as media used to including 24% who report doing so “almost constantly” (Len- communicate with more than one person at a time via social hart, 2015). According to a recent survey by Pew Research networking sites such as Facebook, microblogging sites such as Center, 90% of all American teens have used social media, and Twitter and Tumblr, blogs, and multiplayer online games or 75% of these teens have social networking profiles. Nearly one virtual worlds that include text or voice chat (Common Sense in three teens visit their social networking profile several times This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. JEANNA PAGNOTTA received her PhD in counseling psychology from counseling psychology at Fordham University and a psychologist in Fordham University. She completed her predoctoral internship at Kings private practice working with adolescents and adults. His professional County Hospital and is pursuing her postdoctoral training at the Williams- interests are multicultural counseling, career development, and psycho- burg Therapy Group in Brooklyn, New York. Her research interests in- biography. clude media psychology, adolescent identity development, and multicul- MARY K. ALVORD received her PhD in school psychology with a clinical tural counseling. This article is based on her doctoral dissertation. emphasis from the University of Maryland. She is currently the director of FRAN C. BLUMBERG received her PhD in developmental psychology Alvord, Baker & Associates, LLC, an independent therapy practice in from Purdue University. She is a professor in the Division of Psychological Rockville and Chevy Chase, MD. Her areas of professional interest include and Educational Services within Fordham University’s Graduate School of resilience, social competence, anxiety, public education and media psy- Education. Her research interests concern children’s and adolescent’s chology. learning and problem-solving in the context of digital media-based settings. CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS ARTICLE should be addressed to JOSEPH G. PONTEROTTO received his PhD in counseling psychology Jeanna Pagnotta, 64 Bayard street, #PHC, Brooklyn, NY 11222. E-mail: from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is a professor of [email protected] 336 SOCIAL MEDIA COMPETENCY AND THE THERAPEUTIC ALLIANCE 337 a day or more, with 71% of teens using more than one social For example, Lewis and Wahesh (2012) utilized Facebook to help networking site (Lenhart, 2015). adolescent clients identify and modify maladaptive thought pat- Clearly, youth are navigating their adolescence in more sophis- terns. Their results indicated that adolescents’ insight into their ticated digital environments than previous generations which has self-presentation on Facebook might promote self-awareness and ramifications for culturally normative practices that promote dis- consequently facilitate prosocial responding in relationships. tinct developmental trajectories (Packer & Cole, 2015). Cultural The awareness component of MCC refers to therapists’ consid- practices are exemplified via peer relationships, through which erations of their clients’ cultural identities, and recognition of how adolescents develop and reinforce shared norms, engage in inti- their own identities bias their work with clients (Sue & Sue, 2003). mate self-disclosure, and learn to articulate their personal narra- Thus, therapists should be aware of the cultural salience of social tives (Davis, 2012; Sullivan, 1953). Before the advent of media in their adolescent clients’ lives, and acknowledge that their sophisticated communication technology, these practices largely online experiences are likely to differ from those of their clients. occurred in the context of in-person interactions. However, re- For example, 20% of social media-using teens reported that people search findings within the current digital age suggests that self- were mostly unkind to one another on social networking sites, presentation and self-disclosure among adolescents increasingly while only 5% of social media-using adults reported the same occurs via the Internet, which allows for near constant contact with (Lenhart et al., 2011). Overall, therapists may increase their MCC peers (Fullwood, James, & Chen-Wilson, 2016; Valkenburg & by learning about social media and encouraging open dialogue Peter, 2011). considering ways in which social media impacts the values, life- In fact, this cohort may arguably constitute a distinct cultural style choices, and concerns of their adolescent clients. group. This appellation is appropriate as culture has been broadly Findings show that therapist MCC is positively associated with conceptualized as the medium in which biological, cognitive, counseling satisfaction and treatment outcomes. Griner and social, and emotional aspects of development are co-constituted Smith’s (2006) meta-analysis examining the efficacy of culturally (Packer & Cole, 2015). Digital media provides this medium for adapted interventions revealed that interventions that were tailored today’s adolescents, enabling them to co-construct the online con- to the needs of specific racial and ethnic groups were four times texts in which important developmental issues such as sexuality, more effective than generalized interventions. Research also sug- identity, and peer relations are enacted. The American Psycholog- gests that higher ratings on therapist MCC are positively associ- ical Association’s (APA; 2002) Guidelines on Multicultural Edu- ated with important therapeutic processes, including the therapeu- cation, Training, Research, Practice and Organizational Change for tic alliance (Tao, Owen, Pace, & Imel, 2015). As conceptualized Psychologists encourage psychologists to employ a culture- by Bordin (1979), the therapeutic alliance refers to a collaborative centered approach to treatment by conceptualizing their clients’ attachment between client and therapist, consisting of three inter- psychological functioning via the sociocultural contexts in which related components: bond, tasks, and goals. Identified as one of the they engage. The same considerations should be made for new most important factors in therapeutic effectiveness, the therapeutic generations of adolescents whose media-related cultural practices alliance may be crucial for client motivation to attend sessions and produce unique developmental and psychological outcomes. engage in the work of therapy. In fact, findings from meta-analyses (McLeod, 2011; Shirk, Karver, & Brown, 2011) have shown that Multicultural Competency and the Therapeutic the efficacy of adolescent therapy is closely linked to therapists’ Alliance ability to design culturally relevant interventions and form mean- ingful relationships with their clients. The most widely accepted conceptualization of multicultural