Therapeutic Alliance: What Can be Learned from Case Studies?

Two different video-taped short-term psychotherapies were rated on therapeutic alliance for 27 sessions. The ratings were based on two methods: the Penn Helping Alliance Scales (Penn-HAS) and the Therapeutic Alliance Rating Scale (TARS). Both scales provide separate scores for the therapist and the patient. After checking the reliabilities of the ratings, the strength and course of the alliance formation are compared within and across therapies. Furthermore it was hypothesized that the alliance is structured differently in the two therapies. This hypothesis is tested by making content-specific item comparisons across the therapies for the Penn-HAS and by a comparison of the factor structure over time (factor analytic P-technique) for the TARS.