Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
In this pilot study therapeutic alliance and therapist technical competence were examined as to their interrelation and their unique, collective, and interactive contributions to client change in 20-session long, short-term anxiety-provoking psychotherapy (STAPP; Sifneos, 1979). Clients were highly educated, mean age 29 years, and with mainly anxiety diagnoses. Therapists were in postgraduate manual-guided STAPP training. Results showed that alliance and competence did not intercorrelate. The collective contribution of alliance and competence to client change in general symptomatic distress was substantial (48%), as were their unique contributions. Their contributions to change in dysfunctional attitudes, however, were small. Noteworthy was the negative relation of competence to client improvement. Alliance and competence were not found to interact in inducing change, but rather to play independent roles. Because of several limitations of the study, the findings should be considered preliminary.
Svartberg et al. (Sat,) studied this question.