Toward Common Ground in Psychotherapy: “The Therapeutic Alliance”

Habibe Aykan 1, Psikoterapi Enstitüsü, Turkey
Elif Baybuğa 2, Psikoterapi Enstitüsü, Turkey
Esra Canpolat 3, Uskudar University, Clinical Psychology, Master Student

Developing a good relationship with the client on a collaborative basis is important for all psychotherapy approaches. Studies on therapeutic factors in psychotherapy show that therapeutic alliance is an important predictor. The therapeutic alliance involves the improvement of trust, respect, and mutual interest between client and therapist. It also includes the formation of contractual emotional tasks about therapeutic goals and objectives. While the unity of purpose and task (responsibility) between the client and the therapist creates the cognitive dimension of the therapeutic alliance, the bond emphasizes the emotional aspect. The therapeutic alliance is seen as a fundamental integrative variable, independent of the psychotherapeutic approaches in which it is involved. In this context, the concept of therapeutic alliance, which is conceptualized to explain the nature of the relationship between the therapist and the patient, is considered as an important common ground that forms the skeleton of psychotherapies. Although the concept of therapeutic alliance is evaluated with a supra-theoretical understanding, it is known that different theoretical approaches highlight different dimensions of the concept, and there are differences in conceptualization and practices. In this panel, how the concept of therapeutic alliance, which is seen as a variable that combines the techniques and methods required for psychotherapy and adds integrity to therapy, is evaluated by different theoretical approaches, will be discussed in a comparative manner. The similarities and differences in conceptualization and practice of the concept of therapeutic alliance of the Masterson approach, which emphasizes the abandonment depression, which is among the psychoanalytic psychotherapies, the cognitive behavioral therapy, which evaluates the cognitive and behavioral ground as the main line of therapy, the emotion- focused therapy approach, which emphasizes the exchange of emotion with emotion, and the psychodrama approach, which is among group therapies will be examined. It is thought that discussing the common and different aspects of the approaches will contribute to providing a holistic understanding to the therapists.

Keywords: therapeutic alliance, cbt, masterson approach, psychodrama, emotion focused therapy