Resistance/reactance levelBeutler, Harwood, Michelson, Song & Holman (2011)Journal of clinical psychology: in session Patients exhibiting low levels of trait-like resistance respond better to directive types of treatment. Patients with high levels of resistance respond best to nondirective treatments. Reactance is a patient’s failure to respond favourably with therapy procedures. This implies that the psychotherapy environment, including the psychotherapist, plays a role in including noncompliance. A therapist has some control over the failure of therapy resulting from a patient’s poor motivation or failure to change. It also reflects a failure of the therapist to fit treatment to the receptivity of the patient. Resistance and reactance Psychoanalytic theory characterized resistance as the patient’s unconscious avoidance of unconscious threatening material that might be disclosed and threatened in analytic work. Resistance was an inherent striving to avoid, repress, or control conflicted thoughts and feelings. This implies both a state-like and trait-like quality associated with psychopathology. Once activated, this can escalate to become reactant-oppositional, noncompliant and rigid. This can include a failure to act. Reactance is a state of mind aroused by a threat to one’s perceived legitimate freedom, motivated the individual to restore the thwarted freedom. This is more often confined to state-like behaviour...