Alliance structure assessed by the Agnew Relationship Measure (ARM)

Abstract

Objectives: We used a new instrument, the Agnew Relationship Measure (ARM), to examine the alliance's dimensionality and to construct scales for use in future studies.

Design: We studied the alliance as reported on the ARM by both clients and therapists in the Second Sheffield Psychotherapy Project, a randomized comparison of two contrasting time-limited psychotherapies for depression.

Methods: Clients (N = 95) and therapists (N = 5) completed parallel forms of the (ARM) after every session (N = 1120).

Results: Five scales were constructed, based on results of simultaneous components analyses and considerations of conceptual coherence and comparability across client and therapist perspectives.

Conclusions: Bond, partnership, and confidence overlapped statistically (consistent with previous studies), but there are conceptual and empirical reasons for retaining the distinctions. Openness represented a relatively independent dimension. The client initiative scale had low internal consistency but the items may have value for future investigations.