In first reading the section of “the therapeutic relationship and EST” of Krischenbaum and Jourdan(2005), I was not sure about the relationship between ESTs and the therapeutic relationship. If I place a much of the emphasis on Rogers’ core conditions or common factors or the therapeutic/working alliance(p. 48), does this mean that I’m in support of psychotherapy equivalence because core conditions or common factors or the therapeutic/working alliance do not take specificity-driven approaches in the process and outcomes of psychotherapies? On the contrary, If I value ESTs with scientific approaches more than general elements in psychotherapies, does this mean that I underestimates the effectiveness and powerfulness of the relationship between therapists and clients during treatments(as a matter of fact I liked the summary “It is the relationship, stupid!”(Norcross, 2001, p.347)? Or do I not understand what ESTs or Working alliances enough to draw a good picture of those two research movements that are seemingly conflicting.
I kept trying to answer questions aforementioned in my mind, while reading this week’s articles. Here is a brief conclusion I came to. Research to address the present of therapeutic relationship were very much similar to ESTs in a sense that researchers made an scientific approach of measuring alliance(i.e.Working Alliance Inventory) and making it “nonspecific” variable(P.273. Castonguay et al.(2006)) And research to address the future of therapeutic relationship(i.e. how the alliance develop, especially at its very first step, different patterns of alliance development, alliance research with personality disorders or minority populations (Castonguay et al.(2006)) is in the same direction where research on ESTs are going to. It is because research directions are broken down to answer the impact of the specific conditions and specific patients on success of treatments like ESTs try to answer. Since the research on therapeutic relationships will be focusing on the mechanism of working relationship, not aiming for therapies itself, clinical significance will be amplified when research findings from both directions are integrated.
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I think your last point is fascinating. There is a real sense in which the therapeutic alliance seems to sort of impress everybody and offend nobody. No one argues it is useless (although some argue it is an effect and not a cause). Thus, research on the therapeutic alliance seems potentially useful to absolutely everybody, as it may be adaptable to any therapy approach!
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