Aim
The relationship between therapists’ and client’s assessment of the working alliance is an important line of inquiry. The meta-analysis by Tryon, Blackwell and Hammel (2007) suggests a moderate correlation (r= .36) between client and therapist ratings. The discrepancies in alliance ratings were moderated by a number of factors such as e.g. level of client psychopathology, but not length of therapists’ experience. This paper focuses on the relationship between therapists’ and clients’ assessment of working alliance rating.We are asking the following research questions: (1) What is the relationship of assumed experts’ and clients’ ratings of alliance overall? (2) Is there greater convergence in ratings across therapy phases? (3) Does level and kind of client psychopathology moderate the relationship between ratings in this sample of assumed experts?
Method
Data derive from a naturalistic study of 18 therapists and 40 clients. Therapists and clients completed WAI at several time points during treatment. Psychopathology is indicated by the SCID-II interview and ratings on OQ-45 at pre-treatment and therapist ratings.
Discussion
Research show that there is increasing congruence in clients and therapists ratings during treatment (Horvath & Bedi, 2002), and associated with better outcome (Cummings et al., 1992). The paper discusses whether expert therapists may be better at establishing alliance early in therapy, leading to higher congruence. Another assumption is that expert therapists may be more sensitive to the evolving relationship, especially with skeptic clients, leading to a higher convergence in perspectives across therapy phases.