Description:
The therapeutic alliance is one of the most researched concepts of psychotherapy, but it is not always clear what this research has to do with everyday clinical practice. Newer theories and research on alliance ruptures and their repairs are emerging and speaking to almost every clinical situation. Alliance ruptures (either minor or significant) occur often in clinical practice. However, if clinicians do not identify and repair alliance ruptures, they can harm the therapeutic relationship and patient mental health outcomes. In this presentation, Dr. Tasca will discuss concepts such as mentalization and attachment that underlie the development and repair of the alliance, briefly review research on the therapeutic alliance and their clinical implications, especially regarding therapists identifying and repairing therapeutic alliance ruptures, and provide a running commentary on video examples that illustrate alliance ruptures and their repairs.
Objectives:
- Define the 3 elements of the therapeutic alliance.
- Identify how the therapist and patient’s capacity to mentalize can promote an alliance and help repair alliance ruptures.
- Identify 2 types of therapeutic alliance ruptures and some strategies to repair alliance ruptures.
Presented by: Dr. Giorgio Tasca, Ph.D., C.Psych.
Dr. Giorgio Tasca is a Professor in the School of Psychology, at the University of Ottawa. He previously held the Research Chair in Psychotherapy at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa. He is a visiting professor at the University of Bergamo, Italy, and Scientific Director of the Scuola di Psicoterapia Integrata in Milan. Before moving to the University of Ottawa, he worked at The Ottawa Hospital primarily as a clinician for the first 18 years of his career. He transitioned to a clinician-researcher in the past 20 years. Dr. Tasca is the editor-in-chief of the American Psychological Association journal Group Dynamics, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and he received the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Profession. Dr. Tasca is the founder and Director of the Psychotherapy Practice Research Network (PPRNet) – a network of over 2,500 clinicians, researchers, and educators whose mission is to improve psychotherapists’ effectiveness and patient mental health outcomes. His scholarly work focuses on attachment theory, group and individual psychotherapy processes and outcomes, and facilitating collaborations between clinicians and researchers. Currently, he is conducting a CIHR-funded trial that will train community-based psychotherapists to repair therapeutic alliance ruptures and microaggressions.
