Therapist Differentiation and Couple Clients' Perceptions of Therapeutic Alliance

• Published in: Journal of marital and family therapy Vol. 42; no. 4; pp. 716 - 730
• Main Authors: Bartle-Haring, Suzanne, Shannon, Samuel, Bowers, David, Holowacz, Eugene
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.10.2016
• Subjects: Adult; Association (Psychology); Counselor client relationships; Couples; Couples Therapy - methods; Differentiation; Family Counseling; Family Relationship; Female; Humans; Individualized Instruction; Male; Marital Therapy - methods; Modeling (Psychology); Outcome and Process Assessment (Health Care); Perceptions; Professional-Patient Relations; Psychotherapy; Questionnaires; Resistance (Psychology); Self Actualization; Studies; Systems Approach; Therapeutic alliances; Therapist patient relationships; Therapists; Therapy; United States > US; Ohio
• ISSN: 0194-472X; 1752-0606
• DOI: 10.1111/jmft.12157

Therapeutic alliance has been acknowledged as one of the catalysts for change within a therapeutic relationship. The contributions of therapists' characteristics to alliance are not often studied. From a Bowen System's Theory perspective, the therapist's level of differentiation would be highly relevant to the development of a therapeutic alliance. The hypothesis for this study was that therapists who are able to take a more differentiated stance in therapy will build a stronger therapeutic alliance. To test this hypothesis, multilevel modeling procedures were performed, using data from nine therapists and 93 couple cases collected at a large, Midwestern university. Therapist differentiation of self was found to be weakly associated with the clients' perception of therapeutic alliance across the early sessions of therapy, but not in the expected direction. Although the results were unexpected, this study provides an example of the potential of examining therapist characteristics from within one model of therapy, that can be applied across various clients and various models of therapy.