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Working alliance and empathy are believed to be important components of counseling, although few studies have empirically tested this. We recently conducted a randomized controlled trial in which brief motivational and reduction counseling failed to increase the number of participants who made a quit attempt (QA) in comparison to usual care (ie, brief advice to quit). Our negative findings could have been due to nonspecific factors. This secondary analysis used a subset of participants (n= 347) to test (a) whether, in comparison to usual care, brief telephone-based motivational or reduction counseling predicted greater working alliance or empathy;(b) whether changes in these nonspecific factors predicted an increased probability of a QA at a 6-month follow-up; and (c) whether counseling affected the probability of a QA via working alliance or empathy (ie, mediation). Findings were similar for both active …