Premium
Therapeutic Alliance and Retention in B rief S trategic F amily T herapy: A Mixed‐Methods Study
Author(s) -
Sheehan Alyson H.,
Friedlander Myrna L.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of marital and family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.868
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1752-0606
pISSN - 0194-472X
DOI - 10.1111/jmft.12113
Subject(s) - alliance , psychology , qualitative research , psychotherapist , sociology , social science , political science , law
We explored how the therapeutic alliance contributed to retention in B rief S trategic F amily T herapy by analyzing videotapes of eight‐first sessions in which four therapists worked with one family that stayed in treatment and one family that dropped out. Although behavioral exchange patterns between clients and therapists did not differ by retention status, positive therapist alliance‐related behavior followed negative client alliance behavior somewhat more frequently in the retained cases. In the qualitative aspect of the study, four family therapy experts each viewed two randomly assigned sessions and commented on their quality without knowing the families’ retention status. A qualitative analysis of the audiotaped commentaries revealed 18 alliance‐related themes that were more characteristic of either the retained or the nonretained cases.