Agreement exists that the therapeutic working alliance (TWA) is related to outcomes in therapy across both child and adult populations (Horvath, Del Re, Flückiger, & Symonds, 2011; Shirk, Karver, & Brown, 2011). However, what factors contribute to the formation of a successful therapeutic working relationship is less clear in the child therapy literature. Though trait anxiety, attachment quality, and multicultural counseling competence have all been found to relate with working alliance ratings (Black, Hardy, Turpin, & Parry, 2005; Chapman, Talbot, Tatman, & Britton, 2009; Fuertes et al., 2006), most of the extant literature is focused on adult counseling and none on child counseling. The present study sought to fill the gaps in the literature by exploring the relationships among therapists' trait anxiety, attachment quality, and multicultural counseling competence and therapist perceived therapeutic working alliance in child counseling. One-hundred and thirty-six participants took part in the study. All variables investigated in this study were assessed through self-report measures. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine the relationships among the variables. A hierarchical multiple regression was used to analyze the unique contributions of therapist trait anxiety, therapist attachment-related anxiety and avoidance, and therapist multicultural counseling competence to the variance of therapist perceived TWA. Years of experience, dyadic matching gender and ethnicity were controlled in this study due to the possible cofounding effects of these variables. The Pearson product-moment correlation analysis indicated significant relationships between most of the variables; however, not all the relationships between the variables reached significance and the null hypothesis was not rejected. This study did show that there was a significant negative relationship between TWA and trait anxiety and attachment-related anxiety, and attachment-related avoidance. A positive significant relationship was found between TWA and multicultural counseling competence. Trait anxiety and attachment-related anxiety were found to be positively correlated. Attachment-related anxiety and avoidance were also found to be positively related. Multicultural counseling competence was inversely related to trait anxiety, attachment-related anxiety, and attachment-related avoidance. The hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that the combination of predictor variables was significant in predicting the variance of the TWA; however, only trait anxiety was shown to be the only statistically significant predictor, explaining 8.7% of the variance in the TWA. Attachment-related anxiety and avoidance and multicultural counseling competence were not significant in predicting the TWA ratings beyond trait anxiety. These findings emphasize the need for further research on trait anxiety and TWA, trait anxiety and attachment quality, and influential variables on multicultural counseling competence.
