Re:venting as a way to strengthen therapeutic alliance

I imagine that there are bound to be occasions when "allowing the client to vent" would strengthen the therapeutic alliance. However, this isn't CT's usual approach to strengthering the therapeutic alliance and my experience is that unfocused venting usually does little to strengthen the therapeutic relationship.

For a nice summary of our usual approach to establishing a strong therapeutic alliance, see the "Wright & Davis on Therapeutic Alliance in CT" earlier in this forum.

Establishing a good therapeutic alliance is considerably more complex when working with clients who have personality disorders. For more on the complexities of forming a therapeutic alliance with clients who have Axis II disorders see Clinical Applications of Cognitive Therapy (Freeman, Pretzer, Fleming & Simon, 1990, Second Edition coming soon) or Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders, Second Edition (Beck, et al., 2003)

Replies:

Re:venting as a way to strengthen therapeutic alliance , by JustBen, 01/19/04 Re:venting as a way to strengthen therapeutic alliance , by Jim Pretzer, 01/20/04

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