Therapeutic alliance is the technical term for your connection with your psychologist.
The therapeutic alliance
The rapport or bond the psychologist and client develop is one of the key factors in driving outcomes. The research drawn upon here is from the contextual model. This model outlines that successful therapy is conducted through establishing and building on three pathways:
- a) building the real relationship between therapist and client,
- b) creating realistic therapy expectations through an explanation of the disorder and the treatment involved, and;
- c) the enactment of health promoting actions.
Meta-analyses of primary studies show aggregated effect sizes ranging from 0.5 (medium) to 0.8 (large) in support that these common factors are most important to good therapy outcomes. These effects are all larger than any specific factors, including treatment modality or therapeutic activities, which range of 0.0 to 0.2 (small).
We educate all of our clinicians in this model due to its importance and our clinicians demonstrate strong therapeutic alliance, meticulously measured due to the importance for good client outcomes, and above published averages.
For good rapport, you want to look for a clinician who:
- Presents in a professional, friendly, and confident manner
- Feels genuine in therapy and brings their true self
- Conveys empathy to you through behaviours including active listening, mirroring, and verbally acknowledging the difficulty of your situation
- Creates unconditional positive regard by accepting for who you are and where you are at in your journey
You also want to ensure that the clinician’s therapeutic modality (the content of the way they deliver therapy) matches onto what you are looking for or makes sense for you. Sometimes people have tried a type of therapy and found that it wasn’t “for them”. However, don’t always disregard a therapist who may use a familiar modality you didn’t like, they may have a different way of delivering the content that feels more harmonious for you.