The population that decides to undertake psychotherapy is diverse, including individuals of various ages, genders, socioeconomic backgrounds, and occupations. Motivations can vary widely, but often include management of mental disorders, relationship problems, stress, and personal growth. Despite existing barriers, a growing number of people are recognizing the importance of mental well-being and seeking professional support: increasing awareness and reduced stigma related to psychological symptoms are making psychotherapy an increasingly considered option for improving mental well-being and quality of life.

Gestalt psychotherapy is an aesthetic-phenomenological approach that aims to improve self-awareness and integration by promoting emotional and relational well-being through what is happening in the present moment in the relationship with the therapist. The patient's current experiences are explored to better understand problems and behaviors and by promoting relational self-regulation

CORE-OM is a 34-item self-administered questionnaire useful for assessing the outcome of psychological interventions. The CORE items relate to four domains: subjective well-being (4 items), symptoms/problems (12 items), functioning (12 items), and risk (6 items). Use of the CORE-OM provides useful insights by facilitating understanding of the patient's progress during the psychotherapeutic process. Each item is scored on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (most or all the time).

The total score is calculated by adding the response values of all 34 items. The minimum score that can be achieved is 0 and the maximum 136, with higher scores indicating higher distress. Severity consists of six categories, characterizing respondents' psychological distress as either healthy (a score < 6), low-level (6-9), mild (10-14), moderate (15-19), moderate-severe (20-24) or severe (a score > 24).

The TRQ is a clinician report of 79 items that measure a wide spectrum of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors expressed by therapists toward their patients, ranging from relatively specific feelings (e.g., "I feel bored in sessions with him/her") to complex constructs, such as projective identification (e.g., "More than with most patients, I feel like I've been pulled into things that I didn't realize until after the session was over").

Items are derived by reviewing the clinical, theoretical, and empirical literature on countertransference and related variables, so that the instrument could be used comparably by therapists of any orientation. The clinicians assess each item on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (not true) to 5 (very true). A total TRQ score was calculated by summing all 79 variables. The minimum score that can be achieved is 79 and the maximum 395. This TRQ total score was supposed to capture the general level of self-reported countertransference.