For certain ego psychologists,[4][5][6][7] the construct refocused psychoanalytic thought away from a perceived overemphasis on transference and allowed space for greater technical flexibility across different psychotherapeutic modalities.
He operationalized the construct into three interdependent parts: This conceptualization preserved the earlier focus on the affective aspects of the alliance (i.e., bond), while also incorporating more cognitive dimensions as well (i.e., tasks and goals).
Bordin’s work led to a desire among researchers to further develop ways to measure the alliance based on his initial operationalization.
[9] Jeremy Safran and J. Christopher Muran,[10][11] along with their colleagues Catherine F. Eubanks[12][13] and Lisa Wallner Samstag,[14] advanced a further reformulation of the alliance.
In this regard, the authors invoked the motivational needs for agency (self-definition) and communion (relatedness), and the existential need for mutual recognition (to see another’s subjectivity and to have another see one’s own as the culmination of knowing one exists), to advance an intersubjective consideration.
Christoph Flückiger, AC Del Re, Bruce Wampold, and Adam Horvath[19] conducted a meta-analysis on the alliance in psychotherapy.