Objective: The patient’s sense of capability in mastering future challenges (“self-competence”) represents an important therapeutic target. To date, empirical findings concerning the influence of the therapeutic relationship on perceived self-competence remain scarce. Against this backdrop, mutual associations between perceived self-competence, symptom distress and various relationship experiences within inpatient psychotherapy are investigated.

Methods: 219 inpatients with heterogeneous diagnoses completed the SCL-90-R, the Relationship Questionnaire RQ1 and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems IIP prior to therapy. Self-competence and relationships to the individual therapist, therapeutic team and fellow patients were assessed weekly using an inpatient questionnaire (SEB).

Results: As expected, there were significant negative correlations between self-competence and symptom distress. Patients with more “fearfully avoidant” behavior upon admission experienced relationships during therapy as significantly more negative. Conversely, the quality of relationships to the individual therapist and fellow patients was predictive of a significant part of variance in self-competence upon discharge.

Conclusions: A model of mutual interactions is proposed for the variables under investigation. Results suggest that the positive association between the therapeutic relationship and symptom reduction could partly be explained by an improvement in perceived self-competence.