Therapeutic alliance and alliance ruptures and resolutions: theoretical definitions, assessment issues, and research findings

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.