Ontogeny of the Therapeutic Alliance in Borderline Patients

The Relationship Between Agreeableness and the Development of the Working Alliance in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder

“…Borderline samples thus have a somewhat restricted range of Agreeableness scores, as they are biased toward the low end of the spectrum. It may, in fact, be the case that the difficulty in forming an alliance with BPD patients (Gunderson, Najavits, Leonhard, Sullivan, & Sabo, 1997) is partially a consequence of their low Agreeableness scores. Nonetheless, the current results suggest that even within this narrowed range of scores, higher levels of Agreeableness were able to predict the growth of a stronger alliance.…”

Alliance, reactions to treatment, and counter-transference in the process of recovery from suicidal phenomena in long-term dynamic psychotherapy

“…Alliance has been studied in the treatment of borderline personality disorder, in which suicidality is prevalent. Gunderson, Najavits, Leonhard, Sullivan, and Sabo (1997) surprisingly found that overall both patients and therapists rated the alliance high across treatment, while lower alliance scores predicted attrition, but not outcome at 3 years. Suicidal and self-destructive behavior did generally decrease over follow-up but alliance was not examined as a predictor or moderator (Sabo, Gunderson, Najavits, Chauncey, & Kisiel (1995).…”

Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder

“…The quality of the alliance at the initial stages of treatment is predictive of a significant proportion of the final outcome variance. Gunderson and colleagues (Gunderson et al, ) found that ratings of the alliance by therapists, treating patients with BPD was predictive of subsequent drop out. Lingiardi et al (Lingiardi, Filippucci, & Baiocco, ) showed that early therapeutic alliance evaluations are good predictors of drop out in personality disorders and that therapists evaluate alliances in patients with BPD as significantly more negative when compared with other personality disorders.…”