Therapeutic alliance researchers’ perspectives on alliance-centered training practices.

Abstract

Although the therapeutic alliance is an evidence-based psychotherapy element, scant literature exists on best practices for alliance-focused training. This qualitative study explored the perspectives of 10 psychotherapy alliance researchers on current and ideal alliance-centered training approaches. Data derived from interview transcripts of the proceedings of 2 semistructured discussions at professional conferences. Results indicated that most participants viewed current alliance training as unstructured, while also expressing an interest in developing a more structured, gold standard approach. Participants also highlighted the psychotherapist's role in alliance development and the importance of clinicians' personal improvement strategies. Little consensus emerged concerning barriers to ideal alliance-training practices.

Understanding Therapists’ Work With Suicidal Patients: An Examination of Qualitative Data

“…While Crowley’s (2015) quantitative findings aid in understanding therapist adherence to CAMS, qualitative assessment is essential in fully understanding emerging issues in therapy utilization (Arnkoff, Glass, Elkin, Levy, & Gershefski, 1996; Kazdin, 2008; Lazicki, Vernberg, Roberts, & Benson, 2008). Thus, open-ended questions and coding systems have led to a more thorough understanding of the therapeutic alliance (Constantino, Morrison, MacEwan, & Boswell, 2013), the clinical utility of interventions (Hernandez & Weagraff, 2011; Rose, 2013), and therapist adherence and integration of a newly learned therapy into clinical practice (DiGiorgio, Glass, & Arnkoff, 2010). Accordingly, this study developed a coding manual to categorize therapists’ responses to Crowley’s (2015) open-ended questions.…”

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