Fractures in the therapeutic alliance: an area to negotiate an authentic relationship.

Abstract

In this article I argue that the clarification of the processes involved in working through breaches or ruptures in the therapeutic alliance, is a vitally important task for psychotherapy theorists and researchers. I suggest that these inevitable problems in the therapeutic alliance provide important opportunities for clarifying factors that may create barriers to authentic relatedness in client everyday lives. Furthermore, working through these problems can provide clients with valuable experience in the important tasks of reconciling the needs for relatedness and agency, and of coming to accept both self and other. The centrality of these tasks to the human condition has been recognized across the ages and across different cultures. The current paradigm shift in psychotherapy theory and practice toward more relational and constructivist perspectives, however, has established a particularly ripe climate for enhancing our understanding of the client -therapist relationship through a differentiated exploration of these concerns.