Marianne Welmers

Alliance Discrepancies 103 CHAPTER 4 4 5 6 -.200 (15) .500** (27) -.472 + (12) .614** (16) .105 (27) -.282 (12) -.168 (15) .322 (11) -.645 (4) - -.630 + (6) -.491 (3) .141 (7) - -.061 (12) 1.000** (2) .075 (10) - general ‘female effect’ rather than a gender match effect, as in her study dyads with female therapists - even dyads with male clients - had stronger alliances compared to dyads with male therapists. It should be noted that in all these study samples, as in our study, male therapistswereunderrepresentedor evenabsent. Therefore, further research includingmore male therapists isneeded todrawvalidconclusionson theeffect of gendermatchonalliance. With regard to discrepancies in alliance, we also found that parents had stronger alliances as compared to youths. Thiswas in linewith our hypothesis andwithmeta-analytic findings of Roest et al. (2021b). They argue that building allianceswith children and adolescents can be complicatedby developmental issues, such as cognitive limitations in understanding the necessity of treatment for younger children. For teenage youths, conflicts with parents on need and aimof treatment and problems with accepting authoritymight be a complicating factor. In family treatment, forming an alliance with children or adolescents might be even more complex, as they are less powerful interaction partners as compared to adults, and the presence of parents in sessions (even when in part) might cause feelings of shame and a hesitation to be open (Escudero & Friedlander , 2017). Although being heard during treatment appears to be very important for youths in family therapy (Strickland-Clark et al., 2000), playing an active role in a conjoint treatment process with adults is challenging for children and adolescents, and should therefore be carefully guided by the therapist both verbally and non-verbally (Escudero & Friedlander, 2017; O’Reilly, 2008). Therapists’ Evaluation of Alliances in Family Treatment We found no significant differences in alliance discrepancies between therapist-, client-, and observer-reports, indicating that therapists assess differences in alliances comparablewith both observers and familymembers’ self-reports. This finding underlines both the robustness of the occurrence of alliance discrepancies as well as the therapists’