| A series of studies have shown the quality of the therapeutic alliance to be a strong predictor of outcome across a wide range of modalities (Castonguay, Constantino & Holtforth 2006; Martin, Garske, & Davis, 2000; Horvath & Symonds, 1991) and demonstrated that when therapists can work through negative process and repair ruptures in the alliance, their patients may have better treatment outcomes (Bordin, 1994; Henry & Strupp, 1994; Horvath, 1995; Safran, Muran & Eubanks-Carter, 2011). This paper presents a study that used the Segmented Working Alliance Inventory-Observer Form (S-WAI-O), an observer-based method of detecting ruptures and their repair, and provides psychometric validity and reliability for the measure. Observers applied the S-WAI-O coding method to therapy sessions from 22 therapeutic dyads, whose therapists underwent specialized rupture resolution training. The S-WAI-O was used to detect changes in the quality of the therapeutic alliance before and after this specialized training. While no differences were found between the pre- and post-training phases of therapy, the S-WAI-O was found to be a valid and reliable measure. This paper is broken down into two parts: (1) a review of the principal theoretical concepts surrounding the study, and (2) the empirical study itself. |
