A review of research on the Type A-Type B therapist variable is made with the aim of determining if this is a valid typology for delineating successful and unsuccessful therapeutic interventions. The majority of studies (using analogues of psychotherapy with A and B undergraduates serving as "therapists") have attempted to locate personality and other behavioral correlates of A-B status.
Conclusions drawn from these studies stand singly without corroboration; attempts to replicate them have been unsuccessful; or they have been contradicted by other findings. On the whole, it appears that A-B scales measure nothing which is meaningfully and reliably related to therapeutic success.
Serious methodological shortcomings of the original research on the A-B variable are noted, and a strong stance is taken that A-B scales and the prolific
research which they have fostered are useless in elucidating characteristics of effective and ineffective psychotherapists.