Resolution Process of Therapeutic Alliance Ruptures: A Review of the Literature

Adolescents living in youth centers often comply with therapeutic treatment against their will. We think that this forced environment ruptures the therapeutic alliance between adolescents and their therapists and, as such, influences the therapeutic results. It has been reported, however, that therapies evoking rupture of the alliance with its later restoration are more effective than therapies without rupture. We review the literature on models of therapeutic alliance rupture resolution. This review is limited to experimentally- tested models. Firstly, we define the concepts of therapeutic alliance and its rupture. Then, we explore experimental models that quantify therapeutic alliance rupture resolution, describing methods of experimental validation, the results of models applied for experimental validation, and analysis of the data thus obtained.