As a therapist/counselor being able to gauge, and even measure, the therapeutic alliance is critical to care. If you suspect your therapy sessions aren’t working perhaps a new approach is in order. MyOutcomes can tell you if you are back on track.
In case it is not known, the therapeutic alliance is, in general terms, the relationship between the client and the mental health professional. As studies have consistently shown, and it makes sense on its own accord, this alliance is important because, "the client–therapist alliance is a reliable predictor of a positive clinical outcome independent of the variety of psychotherapy approaches and outcome measures."
As such, being able to gauge, and even measure, the therapeutic alliance is critical to care. Now, while it's impossible to speak to every therapeutic relationship, some scenarios where understanding the strength of the alliance as being critical are easy to imagine. For example, let's say you, as a counselor with a client, are not really getting anywhere. Certainly, this happens often in mental health. So, you decide a new approach is in order. How can you tell if the new track is working? MyOutcomes' Feedback-Informed Treatment (FIT) elicits feedback from clients to show what the client thinks, in real time, session by session, about the new approach. If the scores suffer, and the alliance weakened, you can quickly stop the new approach and try another tactic.
Or perhaps you decide that it's time to push for a breakthrough, but you're not sure if the client trusts you enough. Through MyOutcomes' SRS and ORS, you can see how your client feels about the state of treatment. If the scores for a few sessions in a row are climbing to new highs, then you can feel confident that in the next few sessions you can push for a breakthrough--the alliance is strong, the client trusts you, so pushing for a more dramatic change makes sense. If you push and the score starts to suffer, you can tell that you're pushing too much, and can let go of the gas for a bit, so to speak. Through MyOutcomes, you can get a better sense of when to push, when to change approaches, and when to let up, which can only improve your abilities as a therapist.
Through MyOutcomes' FIT the Session Rating Scale and the Outcome Rating Scale--counselors can measure exactly where the Therapeutic Alliance is at. So, as a therapist grows in technical ability, it need not come at the cost to emotional bonds--which are, at the very least, equally as important as know-how--because counselors can see if the alliance is suffering or thriving.
Click here to learn how to integrate MyOutcomes' into your practice today.