Wilson Trusty, Ph.D.
Office: TBD
Dr. Trusty is accepting up to two clinical graduate students for admission in fall 2027.
Research Interests
My research focuses on psychotherapy process and outcome, or the study of what makes therapy work. The specific topics I research include the working alliance, the influence of client characteristics on psychotherapy process and outcome, the extent to which therapists differ in their effectiveness, and service delivery factors (e.g., provision of telehealth versus in-person care). I often study these topics using data from routine practice to learn what is already going well (or not) in real-world treatment and how we can make it better. I am also a faculty consultant for the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH), which is an international practice-research network of university counseling centers (https://ccmh.psu.edu/). I use naturalistic data from CCMH to conduct large-scale process and outcome studies in collaboration with the CCMH community. A major set of projects I am currently conducting with CCMH examines the cultural appropriateness, psychometric properties, and clinical utility of the Spanish version of the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms, which is CCMH's principle psychotherapy outcome monitoring instrument.
Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.com/
Selected Publications
Kilcullen, J. R., Castonguay, L. G., & Trusty, W. T. (2026). Therapist effects, case-mix factors, and treatment characteristics in university counseling centers. Journal of Counseling Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/
Trusty, W. T., Scofield, B. E., Cooper, S. E., Castonguay, L. G., Hayes, J. A. & Janis, R. A. (2025). Teletherapy post-COVID-19: Comparisons with in-person client characteristics and service utilization in routine practice. Journal of Clinical Psychology. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/
Trusty, W. T., Castonguay, L. G., Chun-Kennedy, C. L., Magruder, S. A. N., Janis, R. A., Davis, K. A., Augustin, D. C., & Scofield, B. E. (2025). Client characteristics and early working alliance development: A person-centered research approach. Psychotherapy Research, 35(7), 1129-1243. https://doi.org/10.1080/
Trusty, W. T., Scofield, B. E., Janis, R. A., Cummins, A. L., & White, T. D. (2024). Psychotherapy dose, clinical outcome, and academic withdrawal at university counseling centers. Psychological Services. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/
Trusty, W. T., & Swift, J. K. (2023). Effort and effort discounting as predictors of seeking psychotherapy among individuals with depression. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 79(11), 2635-2649. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.
Trusty. W. T., Swift, J. K., & Higgins, H. J. (2023). Stigma and intentions to seek psychotherapy among primary care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A mediational analysis. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 30(4), 572-577. https://doi.org/10.1007/
Schow, D., Thompson, A., Trusty, W. T., Buchi-Fotre, L. (2022). Use of a research as intervention approach to explore telebehavioral health services during the COVID-19 pandemic in southeastern Idaho. Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 13(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/
Trusty, W. T., Swift, J. K., Winkeljohn Black, S., Dimmick, A. A., & Penix, E. A. (2022). Religious microaggressions in psychotherapy: A mixed methods examination of client perspectives. Psychotherapy, 59(3), 351-362. https://doi.org/10.1037/