This is a complicated issue, which varies in many respects by the context, population, and question of interest. Here are some citations that may be helpful:

McLeod, B. D. (2011). The relation of the alliance with outcomes in youth psychotherapy: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 603-616. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2011.02.001

Elvins R & Green J (2008). The conceptualization and measurement of therapeutic alliance: an empirical review. Clin Psychol Rev., 28(7):1167-87. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2008.04.002.

Dear Matthew

You are right this is indeed a complicated issue: Why? Empirical data show us that observationally measured alliances (therapist and observer), are predictive for the outcome rates, but for example they are more homogeneous in their effect size than alliance when measured using patients’ self-reporting (Bachelor 2013). Muran et al., (1994), were the first to raise the question whether patient-rated measures of the working alliance are rating compliance not the working alliance (collaboration), because they could demonstrate that friendly submissive patients reported constantly a good early alliance.

Best regards

Egon

Bachelor, A. (2013). Clients' and therapists' views of the therapeutic alliance: similarities, differences and relationship to therapy outcome. Clin Psychol Psychother, 20(2), 118-135. doi: 10.1002/cpp.792

Muran, J. C., Segal, Z. V., Samstag, L. W., & Crawford, C. E. (1994). Patient pretreatment interpersonal problems and therapeutic alliance in short-term cognitive therapy. J Consult Clin Psychol, 62(1), 185-190.

There is a recent paper by McEvoy et al. that might be helpful related to therapeutic alliance in individual and group models of CBT. In fact, the largest body of work on this topic with valid measures is related to CBT. One infrequently measured aspect of therapeutic alliance is patient-therapist match, a subject that comes up more in psychoanalytic work. For work on this, read papers by Judy Kantrowitz, a psychoanalyst who has thought about this a great deal.

Dear Matthew

Thank you for Elvins R & Green J (2008), it is part of the issue I am looking for.

A further interesting research has been done by Westmacott R. 2010 doi: 10.1080/10503301003645796 demonstrating following about clients' and therapists' views of the therapeutic alliance (the topic was termination). When clients unilaterally ended therapy, therapists were only partially aware of either the extent of clients' perceived improvements or their dissatisfaction. When termination was mutually determined, there were no differences between client and therapist ratings of termination reasons.

Egon

I just came across the following, but you should contact Tim Anderson for a copy:

Andrew Darchuk, Victor Wang, David Weibel, Jennifer Fende, Timothy Anderson, Adam Horvath (2000). Manual for the Working Alliance Inventory – Observer Form (WAI-O): Revision IV. Department of Psychology, Ohio University.

Dear John

Thank you.

Egon