Therapeutic Alliance: A Concept for the Childbearing Season

Abstract

This analysis was conducted to describe the concept of therapeutic alliance and its appropriateness for health-care provider-client interactions during the childbearing season. The concept has been defined in other disciplines. A universal definition suggested a merging of efforts directed toward health. A simple and concise definition evolved, which is applicable to the childbearing season as well as to health-care encounters across the life span. This definition states: Therapeutic alliance is a process within a health-care provider-client interaction that is initiated by an identified need for positive client health-care behaviors, whereby both parties work together toward this goal with consideration of the client's current health status and developmental stage within the life span.

Midwifery Care: Reflections of Midwifery Clients

“…Therapeutic alliance involves collaboration to determine goal-directed activities and utilizes a supportive relationship to facilitate achievement of a goal (Doherty, 2009;Madden, 1990;Zetzel, 1956).…”

Therapeutic Alliance in Mental Health Nursing: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis

“…Multiple terms are used to describe the alliance, sometimes within a single article, for example 'working alliance' (Doherty, 2009;Shanley & Jubb-Shanley, 2012); 'helping alliance' (Cole, 2006;Doherty, 2009); 'therapeutic relationship' (Hosking, 1993;Ramjan, 2004) 'working relationship' (Hewitt & Coffey, 2005;Thurston, 2003); 'therapeutic partnership' (Conway, 1998;Dickinson & Hurley, 2011;Sturis, 2002) and 'helping relationship' (Anderson & Funnell, 2008;Shanley & Jubb-Shanley, 2007). Some authors use these terms synonymously, while others draw critical distinctions regarding their use and meaning (Wright, 2010).…”

“…Mental health nursing has evolved to embrace the tenets of therapeutic alliance, as evidenced by current mental health nursing literature (Elder, Evans, & Nizette, 2013;Stein-Parbury, 2014). It is documented that nurses develop therapeutic alliances in different contexts and with people who have varying needs, for example, people with variations in cultural background (Cravener, 1992), variations in mental wellbeing (Hewitt & Coffey, 2005;Thurston, 2003) or physical wellbeing (Anderson & Funnell, 2008), and people experiencing life transitions, such as adolescence (Bennett, 2012;Kempe, 1998) and pregnancy and birth (Doherty, 2009(Doherty, , 2010.…”

“…Previous concept analyses of therapeutic alliance in nursing have focussed on the contexts of community nursing (Madden, 1990) and maternal-newborn nursing (Doherty, 2009). Both of these authors employed the Schwartz- Barcott and Kim (1986) hybrid model of concept analysis and subsequently developed a concise nursing definition of therapeutic alliance.…”

“…Both of these authors employed the Schwartz- Barcott and Kim (1986) hybrid model of concept analysis and subsequently developed a concise nursing definition of therapeutic alliance. In those analyses, therapeutic alliance is characterised as a process of interaction in which nurse and consumer work collaboratively through negotiation of goals for enhanced health and wellbeing, in a relationship characterised by warmth, trust and mutual respect (Doherty, 2009;Madden, 1990).…”