Before Any Technique: The Working Alliance and a First Session With a Client Who Lost Her Job
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Psychology Program, Aspen University
PSY530: Advanced Helping Skills
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Month Day, Year
Before Any Technique: The Working Alliance and a First Session With a Client Who Lost Her Job
Every approach to counseling studied in this course, from person-centered to cognitive behavioral to solution-focused, depends on a relationship between counselor and client strong enough to carry the work. This paper examines that relationship through the concept of the working alliance, reviews the evidence linking it to outcomes, and applies it to the first session with Teresa, a composite 52-year-old client who will be followed through the course. It closes with implications for practice.
The Working Alliance
Bordin (1979) proposed that the working alliance, a concept drawn from psychoanalytic writing, applies to all forms of helping, and that it has three parts: agreement between client and counselor on the goals of the work, agreement on the tasks each will undertake to reach those goals, and the bond of trust and attachment that develops between them. The value of Bordin's formulation is that it makes the alliance something a counselor can build deliberately. Goals and tasks are negotiated in conversation; the bond grows from the counselor's consistency, attention, and respect. Different approaches emphasize different parts. A cognitive behavioral counselor relies heavily on agreement about tasks such as homework, while a person-centered counselor emphasizes the bond, but none can do without all three.
The Evidence
The alliance is one of the most studied factors in psychotherapy. In a meta-analysis of 295 independent studies covering more than 30,000 patients from 1978 to 2017, Flückiger et al. (2018) found an overall association between the alliance and treatment outcome of r = .278 for face-to-face therapy, with a nearly identical figure for Internet-based therapy. The association held across assessor perspectives, measures, treatment approaches, patient characteristics, and countries. The authors noted that correlation does not establish that the alliance causes improvement, since clients who are improving may also rate the relationship more highly. Even so, a relationship that predicts outcome this consistently across every kind of therapy is not a background condition; it is part of the treatment.
The Client
Teresa is a composite 52-year-old Mexican American woman, married, with two adult children, who was laid off three months ago from her position as a bank branch manager after 19 years. She was referred by her primary care physician after reporting poor sleep, low mood, and loss of interest in activities she used to enjoy. She mentions, when asked directly, that she now drinks four or five glasses of wine most evenings. She describes herself as "the one who handles things" and says she agreed to come because her husband insisted. She is uncertain what counseling can do for a problem she sees as practical: she needs a job.
Building the Bond
Teresa arrives guarded. Early in the session she says, "I don't really know why I'm here. Other people have it worse." A counselor focused on the bond would resist reassuring her or correcting her and would instead reflect what she seems to feel: "It sounds like it's hard to be sitting here at all, when you're used to being the person who takes care of things." Rogers (1957) described empathic understanding, unconditional positive regard, and congruence as conditions for therapeutic change; in this moment, accurate empathy about her discomfort communicates that she does not have to earn her place in the room. Later, when she mentions that she has not told her mother about the layoff, a brief acknowledgment of how much she is carrying alone deepens the bond further.
Agreeing on Goals and Tasks
Teresa's stated goal is to find a job. The counselor does not dismiss it; finding work matters, and it is her goal. But the counselor can explore what stands in the way: "What has made the search harder than you expected?" Teresa describes lying awake, feeling ashamed when former colleagues call, and having a drink to "switch off" in the evening. Together they agree on two goals: getting her sleep and mood to a point where she can job-hunt with energy, and understanding how the drinking fits in. They agree on tasks as well: weekly sessions for the next eight weeks, a simple mood and sleep log, and a return visit to her physician about her sleep. Agreement on tasks is explicit, so that later homework does not feel imposed.
Watching for Strain
Alliances are rarely smooth. With Teresa, likely strains include her sense that counseling is not practical, discomfort discussing the drinking, and cultural expectations about keeping family matters private. Signs of strain would include canceled sessions, short answers, or agreeing to homework and not doing it. The counselor's response should be to name the strain gently and invite her view, for example: "I wonder whether the log felt like one more thing to manage. Would something different fit better?" Repairing a strain can strengthen the alliance more than never having one. Because Teresa sees herself as the capable one, she may also hide strain by being agreeable, so the counselor will ask at the end of each session what was helpful and what was not, and treat any criticism as useful information rather than a threat.
Implications for Practice
Three implications follow. First, the alliance should be built deliberately in the first sessions, before techniques are introduced. Second, counselors should ask clients how the work is going, since clients' own ratings of the alliance are among the measures that predict outcome. Third, the alliance must be built across cultural differences, which later modules address. For Teresa, a strong alliance is what will allow the course's other approaches, cognitive restructuring, motivational interviewing, or solution-focused questions, to be used at all.
Conclusion
The working alliance, understood as agreement on goals, agreement on tasks, and a bond of trust, is associated with outcome across every major form of therapy. In a first session with a guarded, practical client like Teresa, the counselor builds it through accurate empathy, by negotiating goals from her own priorities, by agreeing on tasks openly, and by watching for strain. Technique comes second; the relationship that makes technique possible comes first.
References
Bordin, E. S. (1979). The generalizability of the psychoanalytic concept of the working alliance. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 16(3), 252-260. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0085885
Flückiger, C., Del Re, A. C., Wampold, B. E., & Horvath, A. O. (2018). The alliance in adult psychotherapy: A meta-analytic synthesis. Psychotherapy, 55(4), 316-340. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000172
Rogers, C. R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21(2), 95-103. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045357
How this PSY 530 Module 1 example is structured
Aspen's catalog describes PSY530 as exploring mental health theories, their techniques and principles, and their application for effective client outcomes. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so check your classroom for the exact prompt. This example defines a named concept, reports the evidence with its limits, introduces a composite client and shows each part of the concept in practice.
PSY530 Module 1 questions, answered
What does PSY530 Module 1 usually ask for?
Opening work in an advanced helping skills course often asks about the foundations of the helping relationship and how they apply across theories. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so your classroom's instructions govern.
What are the parts of the working alliance?
In Bordin's model, agreement between client and counselor on goals, agreement on the tasks of therapy, and the bond of trust between them.
How strongly does the alliance predict outcome?
A meta-analysis of 295 studies with more than 30,000 patients found an overall correlation of r = .278 between alliance and outcome, consistent across therapy types.
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