The Accuracy of Therapists' Interpretations and the Development of the Therapeutic Alliance

Abstract

The extent to which the accuracy of therapists' interpretations predicts changes in the therapeutic alliance from early-in-treatment to later-in-treatment was investigated using a sample of 33 patients in psychodynamic treatment of moderate length. Accuracy of interpretation was assessed by judges' ratings of whether the contents of therapists' interpretations were congruent with patients' core conflictual relationship themes (CCRT). The results indicated that accuracy on the wish plus response from other dimension of the CCRT strongly predicted changes in the therapeutic alliance but accuracy on the response of self dimension did not. The findings support the hypothesis that therapist actions are important in maintaining good alliance and repairing problematic ones.