To date psychotherapy research has shown that while cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic therapy are equally effective treatments, approximately 30 percent of the patients fail to benefit from either treatment. Two other critical findings are (a) that the quality of the therapeutic relationship is the best predictor of outcome, regardless of the treatment orientation, and (b) that treatment failures are characterized by a pattern of negative interactions between patient and therapist. The proposed study is a pilot project designed to target potential treatment failures by evaluating the quality and nature of the therapeutic relationship and to investigate the efficacy of a treatment specifically designed to work with problems in the therapeutic relationship (hereafter referred to as interpersonal-experiential). Patients will be selected from those undergoing short-term cognitive-behavioral or psychodynamic treatment for personality disorders in the Beth Israel Psychotherapy Research Project. Those determined to be potential treatment failures early in treatment will be offered the option of being randomly reassigned to one of two alternative treatments: (a) interpersonal-experiential therapy or (b) the treatment that they currently are not in (i.e., cognitive-behavioral or psychodynamic). The primary goal of the study is to evaluate the hypothesis that patients reassigned to interpersonal-experiential therapy will show greater improvement than those reassigned to the other treatments. Other goals include developing a treatment manual and adherence scale for interpersonal-experiential therapy, as well as to extend preliminary findings regarding the validity of a model representing the processes involved in resolving problems in the therapeutic relationship.
| Tufekcioglu, Sumru; Muran, J Christopher; Safran, Jeremy D et al. (2013) Personality disorder and early therapeutic alliance in two time-limited therapies. Psychother Res 23:646-57 |
| Kaplowitz, Matthew J; Safran, Jeremy D; Muran, Chris J (2011) Impact of therapist emotional intelligence on psychotherapy. J Nerv Ment Dis 199:74-84 |
| Rozmarin, Eyal; Muran, J Christopher; Safran, Jeremy et al. (2008) Subjective and intersubjective analyses of the therapeutic alliance in a brief relational therapy. Am J Psychother 62:313-28 |
| Stevens, Christopher L; Muran, J Christopher; Safran, Jeremy D et al. (2007) Levels and patterns of the therapeutic alliance in brief psychotherapy. Am J Psychother 61:109-29 |
| Samstag, L W; Batchelder, S T; Muran, J C et al. (1998) Early identification of treatment failures in short-term psychotherapy. An assessment of therapeutic alliance and interpersonal behavior. J Psychother Pract Res 7:126-43 |
| Safran, J D; Muran, J C (1996) The resolution of ruptures in the therapeutic alliance. J Consult Clin Psychol 64:447-58 |
