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Therapeutic Alliance and Alliance Ruptures and Resolutions: Theoretical Definitions, Assessment Issues, and Research Findings

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Psychotherapy Research

Abstract

Therapeutic alliance is one of the most important and investigated constructs in psychotherapy research. In this chapter we first discuss the historical development of therapeutic alliance, from psychoanalytic theory to empirical research, and then its measurement and the problematic issues related to it. Then we will focus our discussion on the therapeutic alliance ruptures and resolutions construct, which represents one of the most interesting but, at the same time, controversial issues of contemporary therapeutic alliance research. Finally we propose a brief research agenda about therapeutic alliance ruptures and resolutions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this section we gave emphasis to qualitative studies related to alliance ruptures and resolutions, but it is important to underline that there are also several qualitative studies that investigated the construct of “therapeutic alliance” from a qualitative point of view (Bedi and Richards 2011).

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  1. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Vittorio Lingiardi

  2. Carlo Bo University of Urbino, Urbino, Italy

    Antonello Colli

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  1. Vittorio Lingiardi
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  2. Antonello Colli
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Correspondence to Vittorio Lingiardi .

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  1. University of Salento, Lecce, Italy, and Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria

    Omar C.G. Gelo

  2. Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria

    Alfred Pritz

  3. Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria

    Bernd Rieken

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© 2015 Springer-Verlag Wien

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Lingiardi, V., Colli, A. (2015). Therapeutic Alliance and Alliance Ruptures and Resolutions: Theoretical Definitions, Assessment Issues, and Research Findings. In: Gelo, O., Pritz, A., Rieken, B. (eds) Psychotherapy Research. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1382-0_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1382-0_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7091-1381-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-1382-0

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