Working Alliance In The First Psychological Counseling: An Interpersonal Brain Synchronization Based Study

Working alliance is a collaboration between the counseling dyads to engage in purposive work mutually,including the understanding and agreement of the goal and task,and the positive bond between the counselor and client.Previous studies have found behavioral synchronization between counselor and client in psychological counseling whose neural mechanism is still unclear.Evidence from recent research suggests that pervasive synchronization is related with interpersonal brain synchronization(IBS)and may contributes to the establishment of working alliance.In the current study,the brain activities of counselor and client were recorded simultaneously during psychological to investigate the relationship between IBS and working alliance using functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS)-based hyperscanning.Experiment 1 explored the establishment of the working alliance in the first psychological counseling.34 participants(as clients)were randomly assigned to the psychological counseling group or the chatting group to conduct a 40-minute psychological counseling or chatting with three female professional counselors.Results showed that compared with chatting group,better working alliance and IBS in the right temporo-parietal junction(rTPJ)in psychological group.Moreover,the IBS during the psychological counseling was correlated with the bond of working alliance.This finding suggested that working alliance could be established successfully even in the first session and working alliance was closely associated with IBS.Based on experiment 1,experiment 2 explored the impact of the counselingexperience on working alliance in the first session.5 novices whose counseling experience is less than one year and 3 experts whose that is more than five years were recruited and 30 participants(as clients)were randomly assigned to the novice or the expert group to complete a 40-minute one-to-one psychological counseling.Results revealed that compared with novice group,stronger working alliance and increased IBS in the rTPJ and frontal-parietal region in expert group.Expert could better predict and follow the brain activity of the client.IBS generated by the expert following the brain activity of the client in the rTPJ was correlated with the goal of working alliance.These results indicated the counseling experience could moderate the strength of working alliance and the neural activity between counselors and clients;the expert established a stronger working alliance using the IBS.In summary,the findings of this study suggested that in the first session,counselors and clients could establish sound working alliance and the IBS in rTPJ might mark the establishment of working alliance.Compared with novice,stronger working alliance and increased IBS in expert,such IBS can predict the strength of working alliance.The current study used the hyperscanning to reveal the IBS between counselors and clients during psychological counseling can predict the establishment of working alliance,the counseling experience(expert vs.novice)would moderate such association,which promtes the understanding of the mechanisms of the working alliance.