Patterns of working alliance development: A typology of client's working alliance ratings.

Abstract

Patterns of working alliance development were detected by clustering working alliance ratings across 4 sessions of counseling. Results from an initial sample of recruited participants working with novice counselors (N = 38) revealed 3 patterns of alliance development labeled stable alliance, linear alliance growth, and quadratic alliance growth. Results from a replication sample (N = 41) of recruited participants also working with novice counselors, revealed 3 identical patterns of alliance development, which offered strong support for the validity of these growth patterns. As predicted by Gelso and Carter (1994), a pattern of quadratic alliance development was associated with greater improvement on measures of counseling benefit when compared to other patterns of alliance development. The discussion underscores the importance of examining both the strength (level) and pattern of development when examining the effects of the working alliance.