NCT03453957

Therapeutic Alliance Tensions and Repair in Psychotherapy Practices

Therapeutic Alliance Tensions and Repair in Psychotherapy Practices: A Psychotherapy Practice Research Network (PPRNet) Study

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 81 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Ottawa · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study evaluates a professional development program intended to improve the relationship or alliance between therapists and patients/clients who are receiving psychotherapy in the community. Half of the participating therapists will receive training to detect and improve alliance with new patients while half will not. The professional development training is expected to improve therapists effectiveness in identifying and correcting alliance tensions which will, in turn, improve therapeutic outcomes for patients/clients.

Detailed description

Psychotherapy is the treatment of choice for many mental disorders, yet there is a gap between research and practice. Research indicates that: the therapist-patient alliance is important to reduce patient symptoms, alliance tensions are detrimental to patients, and those therapists who identify and repair alliance tensions can improve patient outcomes. In this study we will use state of the art research to train community-based therapists in evidence-based interventions to identify and repair alliance tensions. Trained therapists and their patients will be compared to therapists who provide usual care to their patients. Improvement in therapists' skills in identifying and repairing alliance tensions and how this is associated with better patient mental health outcomes will be measured. Trained therapists will be interviewed to identify the best ways of improving the training and disseminating the findings to psychotherapists across Canada. Research to improve practicing therapists' ability to identify and repair therapeutic alliance tensions will result in better mental health outcomes for patients.

Conditions

• Psychotherapy
• Therapeutic Alliance

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Professional development program	Professional development program consists of training including workshops and consultation sessions to enhance therapists ability to detect and repair alliance ruptures in active community based psychotherapy.

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-02-01
• Primary completion: 2021-05-14
• Completion: 2021-08-14
• First posted: 2018-03-05
• Last updated: 2022-06-22

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Canada