The interaction between the therapeutic alliance and the therapist’s interventions along a single case cognitive study

WAIZMANN, VANINA; ETCHENBARNE, IGNACIO; ROUSSOS, ANDRES

Asilomar, California

Congreso; 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research,; 2010

Society for Psychotherapy Research

The Therapeutic Alliance is a factor related to several aspects of the patient-therapist dyad. The dialogic process involved in a psychotherapeutic treatment shows the interaction between the therapist’s interventions and how the alliance unfolds. The aim of the present study is to assess the relationship between the fluctuations in the therapeutic alliance and the psychotherapeutic interventions implemented by the treating therapist, in a single case cognitive psychotherapy. The materials used in the study were the 15 clinical sessions of the case, which were audio-recorded and transcribed. Interventions were analyzed independently by trained judges using the MCPI, a schema of psychotherapeutic interventions developed by Roussos et al. (2003, 2006). Besides, trained judges evaluated therapeutic alliance with the WAI observer form (Horvath, 1981) in its Argentinean version (Waizmann, Serrano & Roussos) and ruptures in specific sessions, using the 3RS (Eubanks-Carter, Muran & Safran, 2009), in its Argentinean version (Waizmann & Roussos). The relation between the psychotherapeutic interventions and the level of the therapeutic alliance was studied in terms of the interventions ́ theoretical specificity and non specificity, their type and the peculiarities in this relationship were assessed. Ruptures were evaluated in those sessions with particularities in the relationship between the Therapeutic Alliance and the therapist’s interventions.