Marianne Welmers

A Systemic Perspective on Alliances and their Relation to Outcome 123 CHAPTER 5 For therapist-reported alliances at T1, the zero order correlation test showed small and non-significant results. After controlling for baseline differences, we found a trend indicating that larger alliance differences between family members were associated with less youth internalizing behavior problems at followup after controlling for baseline scores ( r = -.292, p = .099), which was inconsistent with our hypothesis. At T2, all correlations between alliances differences as reported by therapists and youth behavior problems at follow up were very small and not significant, which was also inconsistent with our hypothesis. Finally, associations between differences in family members’ self-reported T1 and T2 alliance and youth behavior problems at follow up were small and not significant. Shared Sense of Purpose Inconsistent with our hypotheses, results of both the zero order and partial correlation tests between the family’s observed shared sense of purpose at T1 and youth behavior problems at follow up indicated that higher levels of early treatment shared sense of purpose were associated with less improvement of youth behavior problems. However, all correlations were rather small and not significant. At T2, therewas amoderate association between the family’s shared sense of purpose and youth internalizing behavior problems after controlling for baseline scores, indicating that – as expected – higher levels of mid- treatment SSP were associated with more improvement of youth internalizing behavior problems 18 months after treatment ( r = -.382, p = .110). However, the association was not significant. Correlations between mid-treatment SSP and improvement of youth externalizing behavior and total problems were also in the expected direction, yet small and not significant.