Has the concept of the therapeutic alliance outlived its usefulness?

In this article, we provide a brief summary of our current thinking about the constructs of the therapeutic alliance and ruptures in the therapeutic alliance. We speculate about some of the factors that have led to sustained interest in these constructs by psychotherapy researchers and discuss some of the conceptual problems associated with them. We also consider the question of whether the therapeutic alliance continues to be a meaningful construct, and we delineate more and less promising avenues of research for the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)