Therapeutic working alliance: From a psychoanalitical to a pantheoretical conception

• Main Author: Peter Praper
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Psychologists' Association 2004-05-01
• Series: Psihološka Obzorja
• Subjects: therapeutic working alliance; psychotherapy; counselling; consulting
• Online Access: http://psiholoska-obzorja.si/arhiv_clanki/2004_1/praper.pdf

Although the concept of therapeutic working alliance was rooted in psychoanalysis, today it is more prominent in psychoanalytic psychotherapies than psychoanalysis. It is rather surprising that we cannot find the concept in the Laplanche and Pontalis Dictionary. During the last two decades a growing body of empirical research material on therapeutic working alliance was published, confirming the idea of the alliance as a separate dimension of therapeutic relationship with few recognisable components. The dimension of the therapeutic working alliance was examined in several approaches and proved as one of the most important therapeutic factors, regardless of the approach, and it has finally been accepted as a pantheoretical concept.