The Therapeutic Relationship

When I finished the readings for this week, I was actually kind of disappointed. There wasn't much that I got really excited or fired up about. I thought the articles were a little boring and I was worried that I would have nothing to say in my blog! One thing that really bothered me in the Kirschenbaum & Jourdan (2005) artcile was that the authors partly based their evaluation of the status of Rogers' theories on a PsycInfo search! I thought the arguments using empirical research as a basis were pretty weak in both articles. Maybe I'm just primed to expect some serious empirical evidence as a result of the past two weeks, but I just didn't find either of the articles' theory and research support to be very compelling. I also felt like Castonguay et al. (2006) made alot of sweeping generalizations. It was a nice review paper, but I'm not too convinced that just because measures of the alliance exist, that all therapists should be using them, for instance (pg. 273). Or that there really is enough evidence to warrant the "forecasting" of patients that clinicians may have difficulty working with (pg. 272). This suggestion brings me back to Meehl's credentialed knowledge arguments.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that even though the therapeutic alliance may not be an incredibly exciting topic and that it may not be firmly grounded in scientific research, I think there were some important points to consider, especially for us clinical folk who will most likely be putting these techniques to use next year! I mention "techniques" because this is what I would argue the alliance should be viewed as (which I'm sure people already have, I'm just not aware of the research in this area). Rather than a "school of thought" or a particular orientation, the alliance seems most valuable for teaching therapists about appropriate strategies that COULD foster a better, more positive working relationship during therapy, which in turn MAY contribute to client improvement. For instance, an "affective bond or positive attachment" (pg. 272) most likely will not hurt the chances of positive change, but the extent of its necessity is still debatable. Don't misunderstand me...I actually personally feel like the client-therapist relationship is extremely important and should not be taken lightly, I guess I would just be hesitant to place too much emphasis on it if it means that other important therapeutic techniques are ignored (expecially for those manualized treatments!)