Therapeutic Alliance and Alliance Ruptures and Resolutions: Theoretical Definitions, Assessment Issues, and Research Findings

摘要

Therapeutic alliance is one of the most impor- tant and investigated constructs in psychother- apy research. In this chapter we first discuss the historical development of therapeutic alli- ance, from psychoanalytic theory to empirical research, and then its measurement and the problematic issues related to it. Then we will focus our discussion on the therapeutic alli- ance ruptures and resolutions construct, which represents one of the most interesting but, at the same time, controversial issues of contem- porary therapeutic alliance research. Finally we propose a brief research agenda about therapeutic alliance ruptures and resolutions.