Testing this idea, Pelletier, Tuson, and Haddad (1997) assessed
the degree to which individuals enter treatment for more controlled
(i.e., external or introjected motivation) or autonomous reasons
(i.e., identified, integrated, or intrinsic motivation). Data from
adult outpatient clinics revealed that the more autonomous individuals
were in their motivation for therapy, the more important
they believed the therapy to be, the less distracted they were during
therapy, the less tension they experienced about therapy, the more
satisfied they were with the therapy, the greater their intention to
persist, the higher their self-esteem, the lower their level of depressive
symptoms, and the greater their life satisfaction. People’s
controlled motivation, in contrast, positively predicted tension, and
negatively predicted the importance of therapy, the intention to
persist, and self-esteem.