While past research has found conflicting results on the place for client role preferences in psychotherapy, none of this research has examined the client role preferences in an actual client population seeking outpatient therapy. This study involved the development of a measure of client role preferences which attempted to survey a wider range of therapist traits and behaviors than has been typical in previous work and which was specifically designed for use in outpatient treatment settings. The Role Preference Inventory, a 74-item checklist of client role preferences in the areas of therapist characteristics, therapist activities, and client activities, was administered to clients seeking treatment at a university psychology clinic, a community mental health center in a small community, and a community mental health center in a larger urban area. Data were collected for one year at the mental health centers and for over 2 years at the psychology clinic. Results from 170 subjects suggest that it is possible to identify and measure distinct dimensions of client role preferences. Concern, support, expertise, problem resolution, and separateness or distance between the client and therapist all appeared to be general dimensions central to the clients' perceptions of therapists. A five cluster solution from the K-Means analysis data was selected as offering the best combination of statistical discrimination among groups and potential clinical meaningfulness of the groups. (NB)