Alliance predicting progress in couple therapy

The therapeutic alliance has gained status as a common factor in psychotherapy due to its robust predictive relationship with outcome. The current challenge in our field is to gain a more nuanced understanding of alliance's impact on the progress of treatment over the course of therapy. In the current study, alliance was measured on 3 dimensions: (a) the individual's as well as the couple's joint perception of alliance with the therapist ("self/group-therapist"), (b) each partner's perception of the alliance between the spouse and the therapist ("other-therapist"), and (c) the couple's assessment of alliance with each other ("within-system"). Based on self-reported data from 165 adult clients, we analyzed whether scores on these alliance dimensions at the beginning of therapy predicted the frequently measured outcomes on individual symptoms and relationship distress during treatment. We found that 2 of the alliance dimensions, the "self/group-therapist" and the "other-therapist," at the start of treatment predicted the slopes of the outcome measures. These findings add to established research suggesting that early establishment of alliance is an important predictor for progress during treatment. Variations in the results among the 3 alliance dimensions suggest the usefulness of the clinician assessing different aspects of alliance in couple therapy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2021

Erschienen:

2021

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:58

Enthalten in:

Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.) - 58(2021), 3 vom: 01. Sept., Seite 391-400

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Tilden, Terje [VerfasserIn]
Johnson, Sverre Urnes [VerfasserIn]
Hoffart, Asle [VerfasserIn]
Zahl-Olsen, Rune [VerfasserIn]
Wampold, Bruce E [VerfasserIn]
Ulvenes, Pål [VerfasserIn]
Håland, Åshild Tellefsen [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Journal Article

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 27.01.2022

Date Revised 27.01.2022

published: Print-Electronic

ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01873742

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1037/pst0000355

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM320998290